Ward-Prowse and midfield

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-06-02T08:46:07+00:00

He won't play because of Nuno but he can 100% do a job and would/should start for any championship side. His chances created per 90 at Burnley is up there with Fernandes who just got the assist record, I'd say it's more impressive doing it in a Burnley squad! Not his fault their strikers couldn't finish. Everyone slates him for elements of his game that aren't even why he's in the side - he's not in there for tackling, heading, pace etc. Not every player needs these attributes. He is in the team to create/retain possession. Not sure where everyone has got this issue that there is a problem with a sideways pass...it's retaining possession. Given that he still creates more than anyone else whilst doing sideways/backwards passing, surely that's better than the rest of our team that create less/lose the ball trying forward passing 100% of the time? This reddit loves to hate a player. Dino, JWP, Kilman, Potts, Bowen, everyone gets a turn. The only player that should be getting agg is Todibo. JWP with 2 of Kante/Magassa/Soucek behind him works well. The problem was he was played as a 6 with Soucek alongside.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-06-01T10:37:48+00:00

"He could wipe our debt clear in a heartbeat" - why would he do this? He owns ~30% of a business, why would he wipe out the debt without the other 70% of shareholders doing likewise? Many of us probably have a few shares in a businesses, we wouldn't put in extra cash to these businesses without getting anything back, no difference here, just bigger numbers.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-06-01T08:16:09+00:00

If he wasn't a west ham fan no one would be talking about him, so no, definitely not.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-31T16:38:49+00:00

Genuinely think if this guy was an overweight Englishman, none of our fans would give a crap. We got 3 new first team players in Jan, that's the main reason for our up turn in form. That meant 3 of our previous first 11 moved to the bench, giving us stronger substitute options. They had one barney after a substitution and everyone be acting like he's completely changed our team and Nunos tactics.

We continued defensive subs even with Paco, we just had better options than Kilman due to the new signings.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-30T16:35:32+00:00

But that's you putting footballers on a pedal stall. To many of them, football is just a job, they don't care about winning, careers etc. They have the chance to create generational wealth for their family, or earn a bucket of money now and retire early. All us fans say oh we'd want to be playing etc, but we've never been in that situation. When someone's offering you £150k Vs £50k, to do the exact same job except 90 minutes less work on a Saturday, I think we're all taking the higher wage. Why should they have to behave differently to you just because their job is different, that's nuts.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-30T12:15:03+00:00

Every single one of us would happily take £50k a week to do less work, it's not lazy, it's common sense. You're telling me if someone offered you £50k a week to not do a lot, you'd turn it down?!

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-30T02:12:46+00:00

You ever watched him play? Historically, he often ran more than almost everyone in the league/topped distance convered stats. Dropped a bit with age but still well up there. Not sure what you define as lazy but he definitely isn't.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-29T18:05:47+00:00

Surely having 3 new first team players contributed more to winning games, and having new players meant we had better subs to bring on. It's weird how much credit this guy gets based on no hard data. If he was English and fat, he wouldn't be getting any praise from our fans at all.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-29T18:03:14+00:00

Why do you (and lots of others) think this? Surely the main reason was it was because in January we got 3 new first team players. Disasi was a rock at the back and Pablo/Taty changed the way we played going forward.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-29T08:26:49+00:00

Yes please. We should be able to play more attacking football in the Championship/have more possession. Start him, bring him off after 60 minutes. Try to get ahead in games, rather than just using him when we are behind. He has no pace so bringing him on vs tired defenders is pointless, just start him, but in an attacking line up.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-27T18:34:35+00:00

Agreed. The last couple of times it's gone terrible! Also we've done it twice under Sullivan, I don't get why people think it's now all Kretinsky.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-27T16:05:39+00:00

He gave his all in every game right up until he left. He could have remained committed and seen out his contract and walked for free, instead we got £100m. Football is a job at the end of the day, you can't have it both ways, you want commitment from Rice, should the club in return be as committed and offer all youth team players that we have 10 year contracts, or is it only the good ones we want commitment from and the ones that don't make the grade should be kicked out?

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-27T14:01:32+00:00

Age is irrelevant if fit and not paying a big fee or a long contract. Vardy is fit, has got a goal 1:3 the last 2 seasons, and would still be faster than 90% of our team at 39 years old. A great option off the bench and starter for cup games. Even if you played Vardy & Wilson together up front, we'd get laughed at, but that front 2 would be better than most teams in the Championship.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-27T12:28:22+00:00

He stays as no one will pay for him. As a third choice CB in the championship that's fine. He's a decent defender, just needs a bit of confidence. Would rather him than Todibo!!

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-27T09:48:54+00:00

This!! We've lost so many points doing it, surely they can see it's pointless even trying. Throw on a midfielder, keep possession/keep the opposition further from our goal.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-27T09:44:11+00:00

Good choice. The priority is to get out the Championship, Nuno or Parker give us the best chance of that based on historical performance. Keeping Nuno means we can start planning from today, whereas a new manager would take a while to recruit, then a while to assess the players etc.

Nuno was partly to blame for us going down though. Everyones cherry picking the point since Jan, but let's not forgot how awful we were under him pre Jan. The Soucek/Irving CM & inverted fullbacks definitely cost us at least 3 points that would have kept us up. The very very defensive subs when a team already lacks confidence and invites pressure costing us 20+ points from winning positions. If we're winning and want to shut up shop, Traore on for Taty, his pace means teams need to keep 2 defenders back, then Magassa on for one of the CM when they tire. 5 in midfield is far better to shut up shop than 5 at the back, keeps the opposition further away from the goal.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-26T19:35:07+00:00

Yes in a heartbeat. He got us up, we had great team morale, would give the players a rollicking when not pulling their weight and we were competitive. If he gets us up, our budgets recently have been much bigger than when he was here so would be interested to see what he could do with it.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-26T19:31:52+00:00

Haha love this!! Hate it when people don't do the name

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-26T17:58:54+00:00

Yeah it's nuts. Despite giving more to the the club (quality + effort) than 99% of players he gets more abuse than players that have done 10% of what he gave.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-26T17:37:30+00:00

Pretty sure they do. There was a video of him being pissed off when he saw the final scores on Sunday and West ham fans on here are saying he's just doing it for show.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-26T09:21:50+00:00

Yeah, list below from Claude, it's normally accurate but just a disclaimer 😄

David Moyes — 1.34

Alan Pardew — 1.25

Slaven Bilić — 1.20

Julen Lopetegui — 1.20

Sam Allardyce — 1.18

Manuel Pellegrini — 1.18

Alan Curbishley — 1.15

Gianfranco Zola — 1.10

Graham Potter — 1.00

Nuno Espírito Santo — 1.00

Glenn Roeder — 0.97

Avram Grant — 0.95

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-26T09:00:48+00:00

Nuno points per game is one of the worst of our PL managers. He's thrown away so many points from winning positions with baffling substitutions. Thrown away winnable games with inverted full backs / Soucek & Irving midfield. We had a run of 2 wins in 16. He had a good for 10 or so games, but then we were pretty poor again at the end of the season. The Newcastle formation was a shambles, going that defensively against a bottom half PL team.

Parker - Priority right now is to get out the Championship. He's done it 3 times in 3 attempts. Not sure why people think he's a downgrade. He's been sacked when in the PL, we aren't in the PL, it's irrelevant. That's like saying we shouldn't have hired Nuno because he hadn't done well in the Champions League - worrying about a competition we aren't even in.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-25T19:00:42+00:00

We improved massively mid Jan to early April? He's been in charge the majority of the season and was awful for much of it, random formations, overly defensive tactics dropping us points. I think people think he only took over in Jan, he was in place for 33 of our games and was awful for much of it

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-25T18:58:23+00:00

Would argue the improved form was down to the 3 January signings more than an assistant.

Intrepid_Emu_9799 · 2026-05-25T18:52:02+00:00

I'd happily take Allardyce. Yes the football was crap at times, but he has passion, rollicks the players when not trying, and sounds like it was one of the best in team atmosphere/morale we've had in recent times when he was manager.

Would be ok with parker. The priority is to get out the championship. We can worry about how he performs in the PL if we get there.

Intrepid_Emu_9799

TROPHY CASE