Some numbers

Here’s the midfield’s passing today:

Murphy 42 of 57, 39 fwd
Etuhu 25 of 27, 9 fwd
Davies 18 of 29, 24 fwd
Dempsey 24 of 31, 19 fwd

First, Bullard usually passes about 60 times a game, and is about as accurate with his passing as Murphy was today.   This doesn’t mean that we didn’t miss Bullard, but in terms of being available, taking the ball, and so on, well Murphy did that today.

Etuhu was actually remarkably careful with the ball, only giving it away twice, but his passing is probably overly safe at this point.

Davies had another off day, but to me it seemed like West Ham were almost targetting him.   He never seemed to have any time on the ball.

Clint did alright.

None of these numbers mean much, perhaps, but something to ponder.

West Ham 3-1 Fulham

Oh well. Long unbeaten runs don’t last forever, and today there can be no complaints. We just weren’t very good.

This year’s success has come from tight defending and opportunist attacking, but today we saw neither. All three concessions were avoidable, and our own goal was an exciting but somewhat flukey screamer from Paul Konchesky. There was no quality today.

John Paintsil had a nightmare in the first-half and gave away West Ham’s opener. He had positioned himself well for a cross, but instead of clearing chose to chest the ball back to Mark Schwarzer. Di Michele saw this coming, nipped in between the two and past Schwarzer in one movement for a nimble but soft opener. Rats.

Fulham equalised halfway through the half under unusual circumstances. A nice right-to-left move from Dempsey to Etuhu to Murphy to Konchesky. The left back galloped forwards, weighed up his options, then let fly from thirty yards. The ball purred into the top corner, Robert Green powerless. Oooooh. 1-1.

We couldn’t build on this. West Ham seem to have a hold on us at the moment and even with this equaliser a result somehow seemed unlikely. The midfield couldn’t compete with Parker and Noble, and while Murphy tried hard, he looks slightly blunted without Bullard out there. Dickson Etuhu had one of those games that makes you wonder if he might be out of his depth at this level. Until the third goal he didn’t do too much wrong, but at this level centre-midfielders have to run games; today Etuhu was bypassed in both phases of the game.

West Ham took the lead again when Carlton Cole dispossessed Paul Konchesky and raced clear. Cole’s diagonal run into the penalty area lacked conviction and seemed set to end with a shot into the stands, but Konchesky obligingly took his legs with a desperate lunge. Penalty, and probably a red card offence, but Konchesky was reprieved. Not for long: Noble sent Schwarzer the wrong way with a confident kick, and that was that.

Then an Etuhu pass was picked off and sent back through our defence, and Carlton Cole scored the third.

Losing isn’t really the problem here. That was bound to happen at some point. No, today was just a bad performance. Andy Johnson might have deserved a 6/10. Possibly Murphy, Hughes and Hangeland a touch below that. Dempsey threatened to threaten. But overall we deserved nothing at all.