One of my major hang-ups is overreaction.If this is because I'm a West Ham supporter, always preparing for the bubble to burst I don't know. I do think the drop just feels worse if the bubble bursts at a higher altitude, so that may be one reason. Anyway, unrealistic hopes as well as unfounded doom just irritates me.
We were on a streak of 8 games unbeaten when we lost to a superior ManUre side. For some reason, the memory of a lot of people is limited to scores. The games per se seem to be forgotten.
During that un-beaten run we got some great results out of some very decent performances, but for a few of those games we couldn’t have complained too much if the result had gone in another direction. With the same kind of logic we may lose to Boro, ManC, Wigan, WBA, Blackburn and Sunderland while still playing the football we did during that un-beaten run.
What exactly is my point and why do I use energy being a prophet of woe?
But I’m not really! The point I’m trying to make is that all teams, or at least team results, go through ups and downs during a season, for no apparent reason. I think we are better off looking at the actual team performance than the score line when we judge. This goes for not getting carried away by a good run as well as for refusing to call for the managers head when the oppositions header finds its way to the back of the net rather than the goalpost a few games in a row.
The reason I bring this up now is that there is a lot of talk about a place in Europe. That is probably what the manager should try to focus on, to give the team a positive target, something important to play for, something they most certainly will work extremely hard to try to achieve. However, I hope we don’t think we have proven that we are better than most teams in the PL and to lose away to Bolton is something that really shouldn’t happen. We are still only 10 points clear of the drop zone, and even though I find it hard to believe that we will be overtaken by 9 teams, there is no use in getting too carried away.
On the same note (yes it is on the same note!) let’s not fall into desperation if we lose a few of the upcoming games. It’s all a part of the flow of a season really.
Let’s put more emphasis on the performance than the result when rating the teams or the players.
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4 comments:
Spot on - as always! By the way it's not only us (the fans) who judge the teams merely by their results. It's also the majority of football pundits! The exception proves the rule, e.g. Andrew Longmore's article on the Bolton game in The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/bolton/article5779895.ece ).
Cheers RapidHammer!
Absolutely, pundits and journalists are the ones most guilty of this and that is really anoying.
The same jounalists that in November/December doomed us to a life without funds in the championship were hailing us in January, and are now preparing themselves to write about a disaster, should we lose a few games...
As a sometimes pundit and journalist I plead guilty.
I think part of the explanation for this tendency among us is that it's much more interesting and fun for a writer (and reader!) to try to provide some conclusions and insight, even if this sometimes means overreacting based on flimsy evidence. As the alternative often is to fall back on "time will tell" or "it remains to be seen" etzzzzz...
If I may say so I don't think that even Bubbleview is completely free from this disease. Reading your excellent blog I've been led to believe (at least between the lines) that Zola and Clarke are the best managerial pairing in the history of the PL.
But they are - for West Ham! :-D
And to draw conclusions is not out, to draw conclusion based on almost nothing with the main aim to entertain, stir up a storm, and/or jump on a media bandwaggon, however, is.
There should be an alternative to "it remains to be seen" somewhere that is still not totally uninteresting.
Considering my very limited knowledge I wonder if I can write anything after this comment...
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