The Chapman Report from Arsenal: maybe Moyes had used the cattle prod

not giving up

Pete Sixsmith’s season done, the baton is handed once again to Robert Chapman, ever present even though home games involve a 460-mile round trip. After the Swansea mess, he might have been forgiven for not bothering with the remaining away games, closer to home though they may be for him. He stuck to his principles and was pleasantly surprised at Arsenal, not by the predictable result but by the effort he witnessed from our side …

When we were finally relegated against Bournemouth the other week, my wife asked whether I would bother going to the remaining fixtures.

Even I, the eternal optimist, knew we were going to be relegated some time ago. I told her that as long as the team tried – by which I mean giving 100 per cent – I would carry on to the bitter end.

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Jeremain Lens: our best midfielder (or maybe not)

Lies_player

 

Blame Rob, who suggested we needed an article on squad analysis when I did my last review of “relegation watch”. Or Malcolm, whose idle speculation led to the idea of specific comparisons. Some of them weren’t particularly enticing but they planted a seed so I trooped off to hosted.stats.com and did a bit of digging. Then I did a bit of moving things around and playing with the numbers on a spreadsheet and  here we are.

This is the first of what I think will be two posts comparing our players. It concentrates on midfield and doesn’t include the Hoff as Sunderland have him listed as a defender rather than a midfielder. I’ve also excluded Rees Greenwood and George Honeyman, who made their debuts against Watford.

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Sixer’s West Brom saga: ‘it’s football, Jim, but not as we like it’

Sixer by Jake
Sixer by Jake

John McCormick writes: Pete Sixsmith’s broadband was playing up yesterday so, like Hutch, his report arrived late. In his e-mail Pete said it would be a short report because of the problems. Short, maybe, but, like Nick Sharkey, perfectly composed. Would that one or two of our current team could do so well, although, as Pete says, it was one of their best performances.

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Sixer’s West Ham Soapbox: burst bubbles and no fizz

Pete Sixsmith: football-watching as masochism
Pete Sixsmith: football-watching as masochism

John McCormick writes: What do Jordi Gomez, Connor Wickham, Craig Gardner, Stephane Sessegnon and Patrick van Aanholt have in common?  The answer is that they all scored or created goals on Saturday.

It doesn’t matter what League we’re in next season, we have to get rid of Patrick. He goes absent more often than Huyton’s schoolkids on a Friday. At least, that’s what I think, but what do I know about football? For a more informed opinion I’ll hand you over to Pete Sixsmith. Let’s see if he agrees:

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