Seasiders hit the 'ammers buffers...

Well it was bound to happen, a 4-0 drubbing by a team managed by an ex-manager, namely Sam (I got sacked for not getting them promoted) Allardyce. He's had the hoodoo on us since it happened all those years ago. He was manager at Blackburn last season when they came to Bloomfield Rd and beat us 2-1. It's always the same when someone from the club, whether it's a player or management comments on how well we're going to do prior to a game. It was Steve Thompson who said mid-week how after the international break the players were raring to go and looking forward to the West Ham game. Yeah, well so was I Steve, but that was before the game. After it I was embarrassed and disappointed with the way we played. Even after last week's 5-0 beating of Bristol City I was still apprehensive about our ability to mix it with teams who were not frightened to splash the cash on players. West Ham being one of them. Losing players like Adam, Campbell and Vaughan, who together made things happen for us over the last two seasons was always going to be a blow. For me Barry Ferguson has not made the impact expected and when you team him up with Keith Southern in midfield you just know we're going to struggle. I've always thought our start to the season has been steady but nothing to shout home about. Once again Ollie has been forced to rely on loanees, which on the one hand allows you to get rid of them if they don't perform but on the other hand if they do, their worth increases, which makes it even harder to agree a fee at the end of their loan spell. I thought Ollie's decision to play Baptiste, Hill, Evatt and Crainey in this back four formation to be a mistake. Baptiste and Evatt should be the central partnership with Crainey at left-back and a n other at right back. We play Doncaster at home on Tuesday night and I hope we can put Saturday's game behind us and start to play something like we did last season.