So another year, another exit from the FA Cup in a less than admirable style. The 4-0 humbling by West Brom follows last year’s 5-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest, and a 1-0 defeat to League 1 Sheffield Wednesday the year before. Many West Ham fans have been left frustrated at squandering our best chance to reach the FA cup final in recent memory and has brought ill feeling towards Sam Allardyce to the fore again.
The team Sam Allardyce sent out today was strong, the Nolan debate always rears his head when he starts but he missed midweek, so arguably was a fresh pair of legs in a side that had to play with 10 men on Wednesday night. The problems we faced came from two sources, a team that didn’t seem to have turned up for whatever reason and a West Brom team who have instantly brought in to the Pulis philosophy. They have now kept 5 clean sheets in his first 8 games in charge and they are using the FA Cup as a distraction from their league problems like we did in the League Cup last season.
Valencia and Sakho is a partnership that many fans have called for since Carroll returned to the side. With Carroll set to miss the rest of the season due to injury we are more than likely going to see this strike force for the rest of the season. Personally I remain unconvinced by them as a strike partnership. Valencia has 1 goal in 17 games and Diafra Sakho has only scored 2 in 12 games himself. Granted both players have been in and out of the side due to various reasons. It will take them a while to strike up that partnership again, they were a massive reason behind our good form at the start of the season.
However it’s always harder when you get into the second half of the season as clubs are wiser to your player’s strengths and the unknown factor has now gone. Whether these two players can continue to grow as players is something we’ll find out between now and the end of the season. Before his injury Carroll has 5 goals in 12 games himself so we have lost our inform striker.
Ultimately today we have to chalk down to a bad day at the office. We cannot dwell on the result for too long otherwise we will see our league form suffer as a result. Despite what many people were saying at full time our season isn’t over yet and we’ve got a key month ahead of us of London derbies. The Sam Allardyce situation will be resolved one way or another in the summer so there is no point in getting all hot under the collar now.
We have won 1 league game in 8 and have scored once in our last four games. We’re going through a bad run of form at the minute and it was bound to happen eventually. Hopefully today is the turning point in that bad run and we will see a reaction from the players next week away to Tottenham
