For one of the first timess I think these marks are a fair assessment. However I cannot agree with the remarks about Bianchi. Effort-he was absolutely useless today. He never won a ball, he spent most of the time laying on the floor waving his arms in the air because of the half-hearted challenges (I use that word lightly!) he made. I see absolutely why Sven has little time for him- unfortunately he will never be suited to the cut and thrust of Premiership football and I think we would be better getting Miller back or playing young Etuhu up front if we are not going to buy another striker.

Some worrying signs. One: Sven looked a bit downbeat in pre-game interview, glum. Usually he is courteous and upbeat. Two: Bianchi is NOT up to it in Premier League, too slow. This means we depend on Vass, Mpenza, and midfield to get us goals. Looks thin. Three: Petrov looks brassed off, very brassed off. Both because he keeps getting clogged by people like Neill, and because he thinks his team-mates are dross. Four: in wet conditions, cold, with the opposition full of cloggers like Bowyer, Noble, Mullins, Ferdinand, Neill, our players (Bianchi, Petrov, Elano) just dont fancy it. West Ham are typical "English" team which is why we so poor internationally. Full of hard-running cloggers, pace, strong in the air, not much subtlety but survive mid-table. Life is hard in the rain against teams like that. Geovanni made a difference when he came on - he can beat people and make space, but by then some of our guys had given up. And we dont have any cloggers to meet fire with fire. Who clogs for us? Maybe Dunne, Hamann, Ball, Gelson. That's about it. The truth is we're not quite good enough to play like Arsenal and we're not strong enough to play like Bolton, Blackburn, WHU. My guess is that Sven is getting brassed off with Thaksin (no dosh) and the players are fed up waiting for a couple of classy additions.

I don't think i've ever seen City give the ball away constantly like that. Any other team in the top 10 would have battered us today.
We're trying to play like Arsenal but we're not Arsenal. Too many cute passes and tricks being tried and all of them ending up at West Ham feet.
What happened to spreading the ball around and looking for wide players.
All the free kicks and corners were wasted by the way which is a joke. It was like having Joey back in the team.

Njinsky Blue, Spain
Bianchi won the ball on more than a few occasions but he was always on his own and surrounded by 3 defenders. He was the only one who 'tried' shooting appart from the 2 Ireland had in the first half.
You are right about him hitting the deck whenever any one touched him though. In Italy he'd have had a call for every one of those but maybe he realsises he's better off staying on his feet from now on, remember Ronaldo when he first came to England.

Some fair comments, but think Sven knows the problems due to the other teams having worked us out and we don't have enough flair players to counter this. Think there is plenty of money, just other clubs don't want it right now, preffering to keep there better players for the rest of this season.

Many of Svens buys have come up trumps, some not had chance to, Castillo, Bonjovi, some may not be good enough, Bianchi in particular, seems short of a yard to be top class, we may have to improve our away record to stay where we are in table as clubs will now come and just stop us playing.

If only Sven could pull a couple of rabbits out of the hat before end of January, quality mid fielder & top class target man, we may still end up having our best ever season in premiership

Crikey Dunne makes one mistake and is slaughtered,

We were poor today by our standards which have increased under Sven

We do need a right sided midfielder and I for one wold drive Stephen Ireland to Liverpool if there reported interest is real...
Would like to see Bianchi play with some one actually in his vacinity rather than 20 yards behind him, I was dissappointed with Dowd and how boa morte stayed on the pitch again i do not know.
atmosphere at the grown was bobbins again, like chicken and egg do we lift them or should they lift us...

Surely time has run out on Ireland. How often does this pathetic excuse for a footballer give the ball away, often in lazy fashion. The final ball he delivers is nearly always inept. Sven has done a brilliant job but his continued preference for Ireland at the expense of Geo, even Etuhu, is mystifying. And another thing,:it is abundantly clear that Biachi is... well, useless. No pace, slow to react, no goal threat whatsoever. Who scored? Why yes is was Vassell, a firm rebuke to his many critics on this forum who would rather have a sluggish Italian than a hard-working player who gives his all.

Vassell may have scored but both him and Ireland simply hold no threat to the opposition and we cannot keep playing them ... surely Gio should be given his chance.
Sadly Bianchi was poor and he looked short of pace at vital times.
Our only good play came fron interchanges between Petrov and Elano with virtually nothing from us down the right.
Until Fernades came on it was like Hamman versus the rest in midfield and we are expecting too much of Hamman to keep doing it.We do need another midfield enforcer.
Sven will clearly be aware of this and that if he is unable to add to the squad before the transfer deadline is up the it will be mid table for us... hey,but,we've enjoyed the ride so far and in Sven we trust.

Think the criticism of Ireland is very harsh. He was the only player making off the ball runs to try and make space for Elano and Petrov. Yes, he gave the ball away but so did Hamman but I don't see any comments castigating him.

The main difference between us and West Ham was that they had a forward (Carlton Cole) who was a threat. Bianchi (Don't understand how he has become such a favourite) was incapable of keeping the ball long enough to link up with the midfielders. This is Sven's one bad buy.....Corradi would play better with Petrov and Elano. If we can get anything above 5 million back for Bianchi, i'd be amazed.

Elano was good in patches but he really is missing Michael Johnson whose runs take players away and create space for him.

Lets not overreact to this game. West Ham were far better than us and yet we still did not get beat. We have the best defensive unit outside of the top 4 and a goalkeeper who will be challenging for the England no 1 post before long.

Foe me we are lacking a forward and a right hand sided player. Again, thought Geovanni looked dangerous and I would like to see Sven give him a run because Vassell will never be a midfield player as he is 3 or 4 passes behind the likes of Elano, Johnson and Ireland. Cannot fault his effort but he will never be good enough.

The fans on this forum anger me a lot.

The way that Ireland gets criticised constantly is completely unfair. The boy has been asked to play out of position for the entire season and the fans, rather than showing him support, criticise him for not performing well. He is only 21 and has bags of ability, but he is simply not suited to playing on the right. Why fans want to get rid of a young player with such natural ability is absolutely beyond me. Wait until he has had a run in the side at his preffered position before judging him

As much as I agree that Bianchi lacks real pace and strength for the english game all his goals this season have come from crosses into the box and yet again today despite getting into good positions out wide there were no crosses of note. Once Neill got booked Petrov should have been running at him every time but today he seemed to want to cut inside all the time. Thought Hamman was the only one in midfield who performed today but we need a long term replacement for him before next season, ideally a Michael Essien, Patrick Viera type player. We also need a right winger and a target man.
That said 5th in the table, 40 points before the end of January we'd have snapped someone's hand off for that before the start of the season. Sven will sort it.

To be honest it was dreadful. We lacked guile, passion,and our passing wasn't crisp enough or accurate, we had very few attempts on goal and in truth West Ham were the better side.As a realist Sven has still a lot of work to do and some fans have been living a pipe dream dream.However 40 pts and fifth in the league isn'y bad at all its just that you get the feeling other teams have found us out.

Passing was absymal yet again - over 6 months of playing togather everyday in trianing and still can't even deliver a short pass to a team mate..... this is unnacceptable! All fair and well Sven saying he wnats us to keep the ball - we do that and we keep it in OUR half for most of the match - we only had two shots within 40 yards of goal whilsy most of West Hams efforts were within our box.

We played like the away side - Vassell was poor yet again though he scored his third tap in of the season (if he was a salesman Drogba would be the guy going all out working all day long trying to get that big lead, negotiating the deal and pulling in the most sales, Vassell on the other hand would be the guy that prays on the vulnerable old clients - getting the easy sale)

Bianchi - the mand who missed the chance of the season against Blackburn (losing us two points) and also missed a great chance to win against Portsmouth (another two points lost) today had two or three great runs where he would have been one on one with the WHU keeper - instead of being bothered to run he decided to tamely hit the ball 45 yards into the palms of the keeper - Good Riddance!

Petrov has the free kick effectveness of Joey Barton and just like Barton, he will not score a single goal from a set piece this season.... no threat!

Elano decided not to turn up yet again .....

Our management team which gets paid over £6m between them a year should be able to make the decisions to turn home games around - sadly as we have seen so many times this season - we cannot! The most you will see is one goal from us and then the rest of the game in our own half trying to string three passes together!

Sven said after the Everton game that he would sell players if they continued to play like they did at Everton, on this showing we need 6 new first team players...

Hurray!!! we're safe...

Excuse me but Ireland started the game in his supposed "best" position and was still cr@p!! (and that's being kind!) Unfortunately his best position is sat in the stands! Absolutely useless!! At least Vassell puts the effort in, I doubt Ireland ever needs a shower after the game!!

ineresting comments, and agree with many .. i too, think we wud benefit from something different in midfield (rhs).. all of us, i guess like slick, close, football, but sometimes it's necessary to kick the ball long (i sight dunne today, and of course joe harts since the everton game\) esp' on your own 18 yard line .. a lot of our stuff broke down in midfield, the outlets were not there, + whu closed down well. all teams will be aware of sge's style, so he must be able to vary things, or have 2nd options, i think. i wouldnt include noble in what someone has decribed as who 'cloggers' .. he looked okay on the ball and very moobile. pip,,pip

With Elano double marked it should have left Ireland with acres. Sadly he looks like he couldn't give a monkeys. He has the talent but until he actually makes an effort he is a waste, in the centre or right of midfield.
Bad day but we didn't lose and it's 40 points so we are SAFE!

bluead, where exactly do you see Stephen Irelands best position as cause if its in the centre of Midfield then he as a few problems.

1. He's not quick enough or tough enough to play central as he try's to pince the ball and never actually tackles anyone

2. He is not as good as Michael Johnson, Elano, Hammann or Fernandez in the middle even corluka and richards would get a start in there before him for me.

i studied bianchi all match and he is too slow, a bit like sheva at chelsea, he will be better of in serie A with lots of time on the ball. tired of seeing ireland starting for us, beyond me that geo isnt playing on the right. obviously sven has his favorites. dunne at fault for the first! big time. you never see terry doing a misstake like that. dunne is in my eyes perfect for 98 % of the time, and really bad the other 2.

As I have said before. Very much mid-table at best with this squad in this mood. Bubble well and truely burst now. Needs injection of some superior quality players with better vision, skill and pace.The Doctor needs to spend some money big style!Not being critical but we have flat-lined!

Hayman of rugby,

you are saying that we "need another midfield enforcer", maybe i am studid, but who exactly is the one enforcer we do have?

BristolStevefromOldham, bristol, I thought your comments where spot especially about Petrov & some players lookin brassed off. Imo if there was one player in the squad that should be brassed off more than any other it's Dunney. He's been there nearly 8 years & he was promised by KK we were goin to be challengin for Europe every season but that was just another false dawn & he must be thinkin history is about to be repeating it's self. We have best chance we've ever had to establish ourselves as a permanent top 6 side & if we dont take it now we may never get the chance for a long long time, it's the same with Petrov, he had the chance to play with his mate Berbatov at Spurs but chose to come to us cos he thought the were goin places & ambitious ready to compete with best, instead he as to grace the same field as the likes of Darius Vassell who are just not up to his level!

I know it's heresy in some quarters, but Ireland is not good enough. Flashes of brilliance but gives the ball away too often and too cheaply. We need more steel in midfield and miss Johnson badly. Geo looked a threat when he came on and should be way ahead of Ireland. Petrov was up and down but he will have off-days and we need someone on the right - someone like Shaunie. Finally we still look poor up front. Carlton Cole showed us what we lack. Well done Vass but a squad player. So we still need a midfield general, a right winger and two *proven* Premiership strikers. Crouch, Defoe, SWP and Bresciano would do.

We take it, but don't like it. Next game will be 3 pts though. I'm sure....

It will be interesting to see if we've missed
Michael Johnson as much as I think we have. Can't wait to find out. Vassell scored
and we should all be grateful for that,but with all due respect I sincerely hope he won't be here next season.