West Ham Vs. Liverpool 19/09/09

[shanks59]

I am not writing Carra off because of his performance yesterday. I reckon professional footballers have teams they don't enjoy playing against and/or don't play well against. Remember Rushie v United. Compared to his Everton record. Chalk and cheese. Whu couldn't one of the greatest goalscorers ever never score v United until 1992 but bang them in for fun against Everton?

 

Carragher has a habit of making mistakes against West Ham. The own goal in the Cup Final, the pen he gave away there in 07-08 in the last minute with a clumsy challenge, last year getting caught on the ball before the lad ran through and fell over his feet and yesterday.

 

It will take more than one bad half to convince me he is on the wane. I sometimes think it is a psychological thing with players and West Ham are just one of those opposition tbhat bring out the worst in Carra for whatever reason.

 

Selective in your choice of games? West Ham rarely trouble us ..

[stringvest]

The defence is getting leaned on a bit more this season, as we are playing more expansively. They're also playing further forward than they were at this time last season. Give them a chance to get used to it and they will.

 

Carragher did have a bit of a stinker yesterday, but he'll know that and he will know what he has to do.

[stringvest]

West Ham were absolutely out on their feet in the second half.

 

We seemed to have the ball for almost the entire second 45.

 

The only question was whether we could break them down.

 

That's where Benayoun and Babel came in.... a big difference to last year.

[loadsoftrophies]

Very worried for our defence yesterday, Carra had a bit of a mare but should be given more time to see if he is actually passed it like some people are saying, which he's not by the way.

I was impressed by how we dominated most of the match and if we didn't give away sloppy goals we won of won this easily enough. Babel looked very hungry when he came on which is what we badly need him to be, still done some stupid things but done very well for the goal.

We're looking like getting back to our best in terms of dominating games but really need to stop giving goals away.

Torres looked excellent again, that hunger is back.

[caracaracara]

snippet of stats for what it is worth...

 

Scored 3 goals or more in 14 of our last 20 games

 

Best scoring return in first six matches since 90/91 season

 

So if we can start defending set plays.....:whistle: