West Ham Player Assessment

Football fans have an opinion on every player. As the various football forums show, fans disagree with great intensity about individual performances. This is reflected when people pick their team for the next match.

Is it possible to rate players in an objective way? I don’t think so. Judgement on players is emotional as well as intellectual. I know that I give some players the benefit of the doubt whereas others find it difficult to convince me of their merits. This is partly because of the way they play the game. I have always liked players who give their all in games. Another important factor concerns individual skill. I always favour players who look up and make accurate passes. This is why I always had difficulty giving Reo-Coker the benefit of the doubt.

I believe it is impossible for any one individual to assess players completely objectively. However, it is possible to get a fair estimation of someone’s performance by taking into account a reasonable number of assessments. Therefore, this season, I will be collecting together comments and rankings of every player’s performance in every match. This will enable people to use this data to make judgements on the performance of individual players.

Currently I am using the assessment of 12 different websites and newspapers. If you watch every West Ham game and are willing to join in this experiment, contact me via the forum.

There is no doubt that there was general agreement about individual performances against Man City. Green was rated as the top performer with an average of 7.1. It was also clear who had the two worse ratings: Boa Morte (4.1) and Bowyer (4.4).

Some players had a wide variety of different ratings. For example, Anton Ferdinand obtained scores that went from 3 to 7. Zamora also divided the commentators with a range from 3 to 6. Anyway, you can see the full list here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2007WHsquad.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHashton.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHbellamy.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHmorte.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHbowyer.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHetherington.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHferdinand.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHgreen.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHljungberg.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHmccartney.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHmullins.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHnoble.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHspector.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHupton.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHzamora.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/07WHcurbishley.htm