It’s not quite time for the grim reaper at West Ham, but there’s grim reality in the air after the dread display at Aston Villa.
They say it’s the hope that kills you in the end and that’s the most sickening aspect of the gutless display at Villa Park.
Many fans have been lulled into a false sense of security by a run of results boosted by a couple of FA Cup wins. The reality is that despite being critically aware of the seriousness of our situation, we have won only two of our last eight Premier League games, gathering nine of 24 points available.
Now in contrast to what has gone on before, there was some optimism, but not enough to get us out of bottom three for anything more than a few minutes as other results happened all around us.
OK, so we are in the FA Cup quarter finals for the first time in ten years—that really is as painful statistic for a club of our size. But so far that cup run has cost us the services of Crysencio Summerville our best, quickest and most obvious “out ball” at the sharp end.
We managed to battle magnificently, defensively it must be said, to grab a point against Manchester City, but let’s be honest, we’d have lost that game 99 times out of a hundred such was the Mancs’ domination, 24 shots against our one. I’ll leave it there.
At Villa, our attacking options were criminally exposed. Nothing from the bench to change things, Adama Traore is a massive waste of space and an expensive one too. Why is he here? What does he offer? Unless you count doing a favour, allegedly, for an agent.
Much the same as Callum Wilson; blimey, Will Salthouse must be delighted he’s David Sullivan’s mate and preferred agent. Jorge Mendes is big enough not to need favours from our board, but we still have Pablo Felipe and Taty Castellanos.
Right, this won’t do down well with some fans who have taken, big time, to the pair. But what does Taty offer apart from honest endeavour, running and pressing-none of which we had before he arrived in the last window?
And Pablo is a lovely lad, big and honest. You can’t doubt his effort and commitment. But he lacks pace and never seems to shoot or be in such a possession. He toils away but has poor control and can’t win a tackle. He is barely Championship level from what I’ve seen now.
We know now he arrived here with an injury and he has six starts and occasional appearances as substitute. I don’t like digging players out because his “fantasy” fee of £21m is not his fault, but he’s not going to keep us up with zero goals or assists, is he?
Other clubs were not battling away to sign the pair, were they? A long term, long distance acquaintance of mine, chatting to a club manager about West Ham was informed the pair were a big gamble in our position. Let’s be honest, there are very rare nuggets out there, the transfer industry knows everything about everyone...and their value and what level they can perform at.
And as for Traore, 224 minutes of action for us, just two starts over 11 matches since he arrived and he’s hardly pulling up trees - although he probably could with those muscles. But we don’t need a lumberjack!
Now all that sounds like the rantings of an old timer who has seen it all before, and can see another disaster unfolding before our eyes. I’m sorry.
Such a shame because Villa Park is a great day out, and Weatherspoons was rocking at New Street. Can’t believe I’ve just written that. So despite Cross Rail being a national disgrace and unable to get anyone from A to B before Thursday at the earliest, we were all set for a decent day out.
That recent run had given folk hope. Until the match started. Villa are another level and Champions League quality, Their midfield was just too good for us and we produced a performance on a par with the miserable trip to Wolves back in early January (incidentally, the last time Freddie Potts had started a league match).
But there he was up against Amadou Onana, John McGinn and Morgan Rogers. That Potts was hooked at the break said it all about how much we were outclassed , outfought and outplayed.
And how the hell did we meekly allow that free-kick set piece for their first? Do we actually do any scouting and research about future opponents and their set-piece routines?
All this because Jean-Clair Todibo had injured his calf in the warm-up. What was going to be a repeat of the back three that did so well against Manchester City ended as a back four, Potts pushed into central midfield and Matty Fernandes out wide.
Nuno Espirito Santo may have had his reasons for all this at the last moment, but if he has no intention of using Max Kilman as the like for like central defensive replacement, who’s the point in him even being in the squad?
He is just not trusted by the coach, so why not have Ezra Mayers on the bench, the youngster having done pretty well in my opinion in his first team games. Mayers, called up for England’s under 19s can play as a left-back or left sided central defender.
If Kilman doesn’t know that he has no future at the club, he does now. Nuno would rather disrupt his back line and midfield rather than make the obvious decision. What we saw then was a disrupted, uncertain team who had been working all week on one ‘shape’ and ended up with something very different.
Only for about 20 minutes in the second-half did we look anywhere near getting level, then Mads Hermansen failed to hold a low shot and the game was over. It was horrible regression all over the pitch.
Our 3,000 plus travelling support expected better after the win at Fulham and the point against City. The tide may have been turning.
With Nottingham Forest winning at Spurs, it looks like we are now fighting Spurs to stay up. There are still fans out there who think this will all come good in the end. But we need to win three, minimum, of our final seven games to have any chance of avoiding the drop.
And our form all seasons says otherwise. Only twice this season have we won back-to-back league games. The task is there cruelly staring us in the face.
Now we have a full three weeks before our next league game at home to Wolves (on Friday, 10 April), who have managed a mini-revival now the pressures are off. But they are bottom and all-but down. We have to win this and see whether Spurs can get anything at Sunderland two days later and see how Forest fare against Villa that same Sunday.
Yes, things can change but time is running out, and it seems that everything now rests on whether Summerville can recover from his calf injury. We could be in the Cup semi-finals by then, a match that will mean the Everton home game and David Moyes’ return will be a midweek night.
But long before then we have to improve big time. Nuno says he is sick of saying we must do better. And we are sick of hearing him say it. “We must do better, and the fact that the fans were disappointed with us at Villa really hurts.“ Not as much as it hurts us, Nuno.
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