Black Cats' lacked the killer instinct
A HAMMER blow? Not quite, but Saturday's 1-0 defeat was disappointing to say the least.
It's plain for all to see that our away form has been absolutely dreadful all season, but surely the trip to Upton Park offered us one of our best chances to try to put that right.
Sadly, we didn't take it.
Early on in the game, we were OK, without pulling up any trees.
However, once we went a goal down it was hard to see us going on to take all three points, despite us having a number of chances.
Overall, the performance was indicative of far too many of our away days – a lack of a killer instinct in the final third, and a sloppy goal conceded.
Some will say the Hammers – fighting for their Premier League survival – wanted it more.
Others may suggest that the Black Cats have relaxed knowing their top-flight status is all but mathematically certain.
But with so much money at stake for every place you finish higher up the table, then relaxing is the last thing Steve Bruce will be wanting them to do.
It's far more likely that this was just another bad day at the office.
At one stage this season, those bad days were coming far too frequently.
Hopefully, they won't return with alarming regularity between now and the end of the campaign.
More disappointing than the result, were the antics of Guillermo Franco.
I'm well aware that this will sound like sour grapes, but my indignation would have been equally as vocal had we won.
Franco came off the bench on Saturday, rolled around on the floor, handled the ball into the net for a disallowed goal, and tried to get Craig Gordon sent off.
For a team which claims to play the beautiful game the right way, surely those sorts of histrionics have no place on the football field.
To be honest I would be just as disgusted (perhaps even more so) if those antics were being displayed by a Sunderland player.
The thing is that I just can't abide cheating, and to me such "gamesmanship," if you want to call it that, amounts to exactly that – cheating.
At the same time, I'd like to point out that Franco didn't alter the result of the game, and that West Ham took their chance and therefore deserved to take the spoils.
It would be nice if we could get the West Ham game out of our system as soon as possible.
And you have to think that this weekend's visit of Burnley could be ideal to do just that.
Of course, the Clarets won't want to go down without a fight, and we will still have to work hard to get something from the game.
But it would be nice to continue our recent upsurge in home form with another good display.
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Weather for South Shields
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 9 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 8 C to 19 C
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