OLAS 473 December 20th 2009
You’ve got to be careful what you wish for. I was so carried away with rubbing my neighbour’s face in the fact that his beloved Spurs were 1-0 down to Wolves after just a few minutes last Saturday, that I momentarily forget that Wolves are actually our competitors at that wrong end of the table, not Spurs. I should have taken more notice of the chat I had earlier in the day with another mate who is a Spurs fan. He was not looking forward at all to the impending visit of Wolves. I told him not to be a numpty and blithely assured him that Defoe might get another five. So what happens by the end of the day? Spurs lose, which ought to be a cause for great celebration and much piss-taking, but so do we – also to a team within the sound of the Crossroads Motel. And we are back in the bottom three, about to face Bolton who had attacked Manchester City with great flair and were unlucky not to beat them.
I’m writing this before the Bolton game but I’m not expecting a team so low on confidence and person-power as West Ham are at the moment to get anything from that game. I will be fairly astonished if I am wrong.
It’s another few days yet until Christmas, but West Ham’s defence has been true to the Christmas spirit well before December came upon us, with more give-away goals than you could dream of. Any visitors to Upton Park have absolutely been showered with free gifts from our non-existent defence, often aided and abetted by the ineptitude of our midfielders getting caught in possession.
Being a West Ham fan with a beard and glasses, I was brought up with Hanukkah rather than Christmas and at the heart of the Hanukkah story is a miracle (all about oil for an everlasting light lasting eight days instead of just one – you don’t need to know the rest though it is pretty interesting). So, if its OK with the rest of you, I think we all ought to do Hanukkah rather than Christmas this year and hope that some of that miracle-juice flows for us, if not today, then at least sometime soon. Ok you’ll miss your turkey and your tree an your midnight mass, but you’ll get turned on to “latkes” and doughnuts and I can guarantee you can still have a miserable time with your family.
We have to be honest and admit that only a miracle will get us out of the dog-poo this time around. At the moment an impossibly heavy burden is being placed on the least experienced shoulders, depending on them to solve problems that they didn’t create. Earlier this season I wrote:
“I don’t think many clubs, even among the top four, can boast such a crop of talented youngsters coming through. They could turn us into a bit of a surprise package this season and help us pull off some unlikely results, or they could really struggle with their confidence if the early results go against us.”
No prizes for guessing which of those avenues we have driven down at reckless speed. I think we all really feel for the 18, 19 and 20 year olds who have been given their dream opportunity of playing for West Ham but without any scaffolding or support of any kind. They are trying their best, and Stanislas against Fulham and Hines against Villa won us some of our precious few points – but generally they are failing and they look bereft.
The club has been asset-stripped leaving us with positions on the field without any competent professionals to fill them. No wonder we find it well beyond our reach to string one result together, let alone two or three.
I’m still reeling from the Scott Duxbury interview in the last OLAS. Two sentences stand out. One, when he says “we don’t have to sell a single player that we don’t want to sell.” This is superficially very reassuring, but then you realise that what it really means is that any player is for sale, the club merely have to posit a rationalisation for doing so. And when it happens they will say “we wanted to sell this player because of….” and Zola will be bullied into nodding along with it.
The second sentence, which really took my breath away, was: “Gianfranco doesn’t want to add to the squad in January…bringing more players in will have an unsettling effect on the squad.”
Either Duxbury is lying or Gianfranco has no appreciation whatever of the parlous state we are in. As someone who absolutely and excitedly welcomed the little man’s appointment I would like to think it is the former. If it really is the latter, the situation is hopeless because this current squad is so much weaker in almost every department to the last squad that got relegated. Yes there are key players in our team currently out with injury – Upson, Cole, Behrami for starters, but that is why premiership teams have squads – so that there are more than 11 perfectly competent players at this level to choose from for each game. That is not something we can currently boast. We will need at least two decent additions to the side to have any chance of staying up. and we will need at least three from a long list of clubs - Portsmouth, Wolves, Hull, Blackburn, Wigan, Burnley, not to improve their squads more than us for it to make a difference.
Meanwhile today we have the not inconsequential matter of getting through the Chelsea match without making our goal difference dramatically worse. it must be tempting for Zola to pack the midfield and play defensively, but we will come unstuck as we did against Man U if we attempt that. The only way to attack the game is to do just that – to attack and to keep Chelsea on the back-foot as much as possible and we might get away with a narrow defeat. They know that goal difference works at both ends of the table, and if we give even a hint of collapsing they will take us to the cleaners big time – just like Man U did. You can’t blame Greenie for puking up during the Man U game. He spoke for us all.
In the evening of the Man U game I met up with this friend of mine called Steve visiting from abroad. He’s been out the country about 25 years. As we emailed each other to make the arrangement I explained that I would be coming from the West Ham game.“ Didn’t they use to be a football team?” he asked, rather astutely. “That’s right” I replied.
There are so many reasons to hate Chelsea. I was disappointed when I came across a website recently that listed just 59 reasons. A few examples are:
3) They give their 'fans' cheap plastic flags to wave to create an atmosphere because they can't by themselves.
4) Where were all the fans before Roman and his dodgy Russian Roubles?
28) Players that leave good honest clubs to go to Chelsea just to be greedy for all the fucking money and warm the bench thinking they are cool.
54) Selling Robinho shirts when they hadn't signed him.
Although their number 1 reason actually says it all:
“Cheating, Diving C*nts!!!”
The full list is available at: http://www.oleole.com/blogs/manchester-united-remain-in-hunt-for-lyon-star-karim-benzema-report-1/posts/talking--few-reasons-to-hate-chelsea-fc
A poet friend of mine writes that “all useful hate begins with self-hate” and I guess there are a good few self-hating West Ham fans out there these days. But today needs to be about something different.
We can’t match their roubles and we don’t want to match them with cheating and diving. But I’d dearly like to see us match them in playing with pride. I don’t care what the score is today I just want to feel at the end that we have played our hearts out for each other and for us the fans for 90 minutes, and given us some reason to feel proud of their efforts.
And I want to see Zola with a good reason to smile even if we lose.
Enjoy the game if you can! COYI!!!!!
Sunday 20 December 2009
Averting a disaster
OLAS 472 December 5th 2009
It was an unsettling and unexpected image that appeared before my eyes just a few minutes before the game against Burnley kicked off. As I was about to leave the toilet a man came in holding his kid with one hand and his ketchup-sodden chips in paper in the other. His kid needed help to reach up high enough and the chips needed to be kept upright. He just about managed to avert a disaster…and for some odd reason this image reminds me of the game itself last week.
We found ourselves almost effortlessly 5-0 up on 65 minutes with barely a shot on target. Though Franco was unlucky with a brave header that hit the top of the bar with their goalie beaten, he hardly had a save to make or a difficult cross to contend with, but had to bring the ball out of the net five times. At 1-0 I felt less edgy, as Burnley were controlling the game at that stage. At 2-0 I was pleasantly surprised. I know many of you have been there with me when we’ve been 3-0 up at half time and come away with nothing. And on the basis that we were not exactly playing fluid and sparkling football, I wasn’t convinced this time that a three goal lead was going to be enough. so I didn’t feel comfortable until Franco netted the fourth on 52 minutes.
I relaxed, anticipating that the very worst that could happen would be that we would win 4-3. Sometimes it seems I know the team only too well. Anyway we all know what happened. We pissed on their chips by getting a fifth but then effectively threw our (ketchup-sodden) chips all over the toilet floor and said “go and have a few shots at our empty goal while we clear up.” They scored three and could have had more p all from very basic defensive errors and lack of awareness.
My mind drifted back to the legendary Malcolm Allison, the ex-West ham player renowned for the size of his cigar, or was it the size of the brim of his hat? In his management days a commentator asked him how his team had managed to pull off an unlikely victory. He replied, “We scored more goals than they did”. And I suppose in essence that’s what happened last week, because that is the only bit of the result I understand. We scored five goals, they scored three. End of.
And good goals they were too (ours that is). Quick thinking by Parker and a cool finish by Jack Collisson for the first. An even cooler finish by Junior Stan for the second, after a clever pass by Franco, a couple of penalties where fouls in the box were invited by perfectly weighted through balls, and great determination by Franco to get there first for his own much-deserved goal.
Last time round I commented that Parker doesn’t have the right temperament to be captain, but he was absolutely outstanding and led by example against Burnley for most of the game. Instead of doing those tidy 360-degree turns, coming away with the ball but going backwards or sideways, he went directly forwards at every opportunity to set up chances. But even he, with his immense performance, was unable to counteract the effect of those sleeping tablets on our defence during the last third of the game .
The performances around him though were something of a mixed bag. Franco and Cole worked well up front, Junior Stan had moments of creativity but was too easily blown off the ball; Collison worked hard but didn’t look comfortable on the right wing; Kojak had a solid first half, then played like a donkey in the second.
Meanwhile, Da Costa looked the most secure at the back, but one out of four defenders on task doesn’t leave a lot of cover for Greenie, and we were lucky to concede only three in that nervous final 25 minutes. We must consider ourselves especially fortunate that we weren’t having to play someone like Man U, though I can’t imagine them being obliging enough to let us ghost into a 5-0 lead in any case. My view is that we need to avoid them until we have sorted out the defence a little bit. Only the fixture fairy disagrees.
I noticed there were celebrations recently for the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down – we could have done with borrowing a bit of that wall and placing it about 10 yards in front of our goal. We’ve been treated to some ropey defenders at West Ham over the years, going all the way back to Tommy Taylor – who looked comfortable with everything except a football at his feet - and not forgetting Gary Breen, Rigoberto Song, Gary Charles, Wayne Quinn, and the inimitable Christian Dailly. But they would have looked solid as a rock compared with our defenders towards the end of the game last week. It’s a case not so much of having gaps and holes as fucking craters. But maybe Man U will feel sorry for us and play for a draw. They always struck me as the kind and sentimental sort, especially that absolute sweetie, Wayne Rooney.
Last week, in my clumsy efforts to portray what the West Ham experience feels like at the moment I used the analogy of a circus, though in retrospect “fairground ride” would have probably been more accurate. Watching the game I felt like I was flitting between the rollercoaster, ghost train, screaming swing and the megadrop (though fortunately we were still on the rollercoaster at the end. Just.)
I honestly had no expectation of what would happen during that 90 minutes. And now having seen it I can’t begin to explain what really happened. Except at the end of the day we did get three points and reduce our goal difference, and we had five different players score for us, which will do a lot for their self-confidence.
I suspect we will see a tighter game today. Our hope for getting something out of this one and lifting ourselves further away from danger in the next few weeks lies in the confidence that comes from our ability to find the back of the net both home and away. But when confidence clashes against quality, any sane person would have to fancy quality. However, our free-scoring ways do suggest that we are never totally out of a game at the moment. Paradoxically, though, our lack of meaningful defensive skills, means that however free-scoring we are, victory is not assured. Which, I guess, means that should we find ourselves 5-0 up against Man U after 65 minutes, we might have to settle for a draw.
The more important date arises a few days after the Man U game – on December 11 by which time Straumur have to secure agreement from their creditors for the restructuring of their bank, and if we are not in the process of being sold by then we are in much more danger of just dropping chips down the toilet.
No point speculating, everyone out there in the media is doing lots of that already. But good to see, in terms of a longer –term plan, that Johnny Ballantyne is drawing our attention to the initial moves by Newcastle supporters to find a way out of the powerlessness that so many fans feel, to bring their club under the ownership of the fans. We know that we pump loads of cash into the club week on week and loyally support the players, we are the ones who live for the club but also give life to the club – and we are the ones who ought to be in control.
In school I’ve been doing some work with young kids (8 year olds) recently about what independence means for a country. I ask them “How do you know when a country is born?” They usually respond at first with bizarre geological answers about volcanoes and such like, but then they say things like, you have your own flag, you’ve got your own money, you make your own laws. I tell them that I think the day a country is born is the day everyone living in that country, old, young, male or female, black or white, newcomer, old-comer, can say: “This country belongs to me, this country belongs to all of us. I can participate, I have the power to help decide what happens in this country.” What would it take for us to feel that about West Ham? Can we make it happen?
Enjoy the game. For those of you into betting on correct scores I can absolutely guarantee it won’t be 0-0. Hope that helps you to your fortune and that our fortune today is not always hiding. COYI!!!!
It was an unsettling and unexpected image that appeared before my eyes just a few minutes before the game against Burnley kicked off. As I was about to leave the toilet a man came in holding his kid with one hand and his ketchup-sodden chips in paper in the other. His kid needed help to reach up high enough and the chips needed to be kept upright. He just about managed to avert a disaster…and for some odd reason this image reminds me of the game itself last week.
We found ourselves almost effortlessly 5-0 up on 65 minutes with barely a shot on target. Though Franco was unlucky with a brave header that hit the top of the bar with their goalie beaten, he hardly had a save to make or a difficult cross to contend with, but had to bring the ball out of the net five times. At 1-0 I felt less edgy, as Burnley were controlling the game at that stage. At 2-0 I was pleasantly surprised. I know many of you have been there with me when we’ve been 3-0 up at half time and come away with nothing. And on the basis that we were not exactly playing fluid and sparkling football, I wasn’t convinced this time that a three goal lead was going to be enough. so I didn’t feel comfortable until Franco netted the fourth on 52 minutes.
I relaxed, anticipating that the very worst that could happen would be that we would win 4-3. Sometimes it seems I know the team only too well. Anyway we all know what happened. We pissed on their chips by getting a fifth but then effectively threw our (ketchup-sodden) chips all over the toilet floor and said “go and have a few shots at our empty goal while we clear up.” They scored three and could have had more p all from very basic defensive errors and lack of awareness.
My mind drifted back to the legendary Malcolm Allison, the ex-West ham player renowned for the size of his cigar, or was it the size of the brim of his hat? In his management days a commentator asked him how his team had managed to pull off an unlikely victory. He replied, “We scored more goals than they did”. And I suppose in essence that’s what happened last week, because that is the only bit of the result I understand. We scored five goals, they scored three. End of.
And good goals they were too (ours that is). Quick thinking by Parker and a cool finish by Jack Collisson for the first. An even cooler finish by Junior Stan for the second, after a clever pass by Franco, a couple of penalties where fouls in the box were invited by perfectly weighted through balls, and great determination by Franco to get there first for his own much-deserved goal.
Last time round I commented that Parker doesn’t have the right temperament to be captain, but he was absolutely outstanding and led by example against Burnley for most of the game. Instead of doing those tidy 360-degree turns, coming away with the ball but going backwards or sideways, he went directly forwards at every opportunity to set up chances. But even he, with his immense performance, was unable to counteract the effect of those sleeping tablets on our defence during the last third of the game .
The performances around him though were something of a mixed bag. Franco and Cole worked well up front, Junior Stan had moments of creativity but was too easily blown off the ball; Collison worked hard but didn’t look comfortable on the right wing; Kojak had a solid first half, then played like a donkey in the second.
Meanwhile, Da Costa looked the most secure at the back, but one out of four defenders on task doesn’t leave a lot of cover for Greenie, and we were lucky to concede only three in that nervous final 25 minutes. We must consider ourselves especially fortunate that we weren’t having to play someone like Man U, though I can’t imagine them being obliging enough to let us ghost into a 5-0 lead in any case. My view is that we need to avoid them until we have sorted out the defence a little bit. Only the fixture fairy disagrees.
I noticed there were celebrations recently for the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down – we could have done with borrowing a bit of that wall and placing it about 10 yards in front of our goal. We’ve been treated to some ropey defenders at West Ham over the years, going all the way back to Tommy Taylor – who looked comfortable with everything except a football at his feet - and not forgetting Gary Breen, Rigoberto Song, Gary Charles, Wayne Quinn, and the inimitable Christian Dailly. But they would have looked solid as a rock compared with our defenders towards the end of the game last week. It’s a case not so much of having gaps and holes as fucking craters. But maybe Man U will feel sorry for us and play for a draw. They always struck me as the kind and sentimental sort, especially that absolute sweetie, Wayne Rooney.
Last week, in my clumsy efforts to portray what the West Ham experience feels like at the moment I used the analogy of a circus, though in retrospect “fairground ride” would have probably been more accurate. Watching the game I felt like I was flitting between the rollercoaster, ghost train, screaming swing and the megadrop (though fortunately we were still on the rollercoaster at the end. Just.)
I honestly had no expectation of what would happen during that 90 minutes. And now having seen it I can’t begin to explain what really happened. Except at the end of the day we did get three points and reduce our goal difference, and we had five different players score for us, which will do a lot for their self-confidence.
I suspect we will see a tighter game today. Our hope for getting something out of this one and lifting ourselves further away from danger in the next few weeks lies in the confidence that comes from our ability to find the back of the net both home and away. But when confidence clashes against quality, any sane person would have to fancy quality. However, our free-scoring ways do suggest that we are never totally out of a game at the moment. Paradoxically, though, our lack of meaningful defensive skills, means that however free-scoring we are, victory is not assured. Which, I guess, means that should we find ourselves 5-0 up against Man U after 65 minutes, we might have to settle for a draw.
The more important date arises a few days after the Man U game – on December 11 by which time Straumur have to secure agreement from their creditors for the restructuring of their bank, and if we are not in the process of being sold by then we are in much more danger of just dropping chips down the toilet.
No point speculating, everyone out there in the media is doing lots of that already. But good to see, in terms of a longer –term plan, that Johnny Ballantyne is drawing our attention to the initial moves by Newcastle supporters to find a way out of the powerlessness that so many fans feel, to bring their club under the ownership of the fans. We know that we pump loads of cash into the club week on week and loyally support the players, we are the ones who live for the club but also give life to the club – and we are the ones who ought to be in control.
In school I’ve been doing some work with young kids (8 year olds) recently about what independence means for a country. I ask them “How do you know when a country is born?” They usually respond at first with bizarre geological answers about volcanoes and such like, but then they say things like, you have your own flag, you’ve got your own money, you make your own laws. I tell them that I think the day a country is born is the day everyone living in that country, old, young, male or female, black or white, newcomer, old-comer, can say: “This country belongs to me, this country belongs to all of us. I can participate, I have the power to help decide what happens in this country.” What would it take for us to feel that about West Ham? Can we make it happen?
Enjoy the game. For those of you into betting on correct scores I can absolutely guarantee it won’t be 0-0. Hope that helps you to your fortune and that our fortune today is not always hiding. COYI!!!!
What is to be done?
OLAS 471 November 28th 2009
The plans for building a new stadium have gone rather quiet. But when they are revived no doubt we will be promised one of those soulless, state of the art, bowl-shaped structures, with standardised seating all tastefully coloured in claret and blue, and every naff corporate touch you could imagine. And toilets fit or human beings? Naturally.
I have a simpler suggestion – it’s called “The Big Top” first developed apparently by an American called J Purdy Brown. Because that is what we seem to be fit for at Upton Park. Clowns are supposed to make you laugh with their clumsy lolloping feet and their exaggerated klutz-like behaviour; superannuated professional footballers are not. But can anyone honestly say that recent performances, especially away from home, where we have thrown away 2-0 leads twice in succession and then failed on both occasion to win these games against 10 men, are anything other than the stuff of clowns whose natural home is not a football stadium but a circus tent?
I’ve been a loyal supporter of the Zola Revolution and am still a believer, but I am starting now to get just a little tired of hearing vacuous garbage such as: “it was a strange game”, or “it was a crazy game’. I think we need to face the grim truth and have a solid and thought-out strategy for dealing with it that goes beyond what he and Steve Clarke have already attempted and, so far this season, failed miserably with.
The fight-back against Arsenal and the crucial win over Aston Villa seemed to indicate we might be approaching a turning point, but the pathetic collapse to a very ordinary Everton reserve side, and the farce of handing a lifeline to Hull City, one of the poorest teams in the league – to the extent that we needed to conjure the equaliser to rescue a draw – suggest that we have not reached that turning point yet.
Everyone likes to look for positives. We scored three goals away from home; Carlton Cole is back (even if he has forgotten which end he needs to head the ball into); Da Costa scored a neat goal; the weather wasn’t too bad… (help me, please, I’m running out of positives). But I do think we have to face up to how bad it is sooner rather than later.
I’m quite expecting our circus-like goings on to continue at least up to Christmas. We may win or draw a game or two along the way but if we continue to “defend” in the manner we have done so far this season, we are also likely to suffer some very heavy defeats (especially to Man U and Chelsea) which will seriously affect our goal difference – and in the scramble at the bottom goal difference may be a decisive factor (Wigan take note).
So what is to be done? Well, here’s a little mantra for our back four to start chanting: “Giving away free kicks just outside our penalty area is not big and not clever. Don’t do it.”
Perhaps our defenders should remove the SBOBET logo from their shirts and replace with “FRAGILE: Do not shake. Handle with care. Keep upright” because they are showing serious signs that they just can’t cope. Faubert was unlucky with the penalty decision but he plainly does not know how to defend. Slow-motion Gabbidon looks a shadow of the player he once was. Upson looks about as interested and motivated as my cat when it’s shagged out and sleeping on the washing pile. He also shouldn’t be captaining the team (that’s Upson not my cat) as he shows no leadership or inspirational qualities. And if he’s not sure what “inspirational” means he should think about what ex-hammer Jimmy Bullard meant to Hull last week. Upson was very lucky not to have been responsible for handing Hull a fourth goal because his challenge on a Hull forward near the end of the game was a far more obvious penalty than the one the ref had already given.
This time last year I was mightily relieved that the irrepressibly boring Curbishley had been dumped. And quite rightly too. Despite the lack of many points on the board by the end of October I had faith and optimism that what Zola and Clarke were doing would pay off in the longer run.
Of course I don’t want Curbs or anyone like him back here but I have to admit that I’ve run out of optimism and faith – and patience. I have no expectations at all of us progressing, just a faint hope that a few teams will struggle even more than us and by some miracle we survive. I have no idea what Zola and Clarke are expected to achieve with the piss-poor squad we have. Selling our better players and either not replacing them or bringing in injury prone dodos or second rate Italians from Serie B, cannot do anything but weaken us. We are seriously missing James Collins, and don’t tell anyone you heard me say this, but we are missing Lucas Neill too.
For the first time in more than four decades of following West Ham I am craving a really boring 1-0 win, followed by another excruciatingly boring 1-0 win. Six points and two clean sheets would do wonders wouldn’t it? How to do it I don’t know because, in order for that to happen, we need to playing teams of our level – like Grimsby or Darlington. I’m not sure that Burnley fit the bill and as for Man U…
We have literally taken our eye off the ball. While we were focussed on how lightweight we were up front, with Deano permanently crocked (like we just noticed) Keiron Dyer almost permanently crocked, and Bellamy long gone, we hadn’t noticed the huge hole that had been dug in our defence especially around the right back position. I think we have all been surprised that given our lack of any natural goalscorers, we have actually managed to score 19 goals in our 13 league games to date and that 9 different players have found the net for us. While a proven goalscorer would be a welcome arrival in January, the key areas that have to be strengthened if we are to give ourselves the best chance of survival must be the full back positions. There is no adequate cover for Ilunga, who hopefully will come back soon from injury, and we have no right back. Any club with speedy or tricky wingers will want to play us every week.
Of course any speculation about what might happen in January must rest on some mugs investing in the “going concern” that West Ham masquerades as. The likely scenario if we are not taken over is not nice. It is total meltdown…which kind of means that the players have to somehow lift themselves to get results in the next few weeks so that not only will someone out there want to buy us but that players may want to come here to build an exciting and successful future for themselves. I’m trying hard here to remain positive but to be honest I can’t even convince myself.
Back on the pitch, I don’t think we will be able to hold on to Upson in January (even though he is playing poorly). He wants to maintain his England place to go to South Africa next summer and he won’t do that in a defence that is shipping at least two goals every week. So we need to be thinking now of who will be the next captain. To many supporters, Scotty Parker might seem the obvious choice but I don’t think his temperament is right. He may be a tidy and skilful player but he gets booked very frequently and has tantrums. What he’ll be like when he turns three years old I don’t know. A year or two back I could imagine Mark Noble being groomed for the role of captain but his progress seems to have halted, and though I have not heard that he is injured he was left out of the Everton game and didn’t make the squad against Villa. has he had a big falling out with management?
There are two players that currently show the potential for leadership on the pitch although both will no doubt be targets for the poachers and vultures in January and we will need to work hard to persuade them not to jump ship. They are Jack Collisson and Valon Behrami. Keep both of them and make one the captain and we may have a chance of staying up and even climbing the table.
In the meantime enjoy the game today. Accept that whichever team gets the second goal might not win. Look out for jugglers and tightrope walkers and Faubert the Clown. COYI!!!!
The plans for building a new stadium have gone rather quiet. But when they are revived no doubt we will be promised one of those soulless, state of the art, bowl-shaped structures, with standardised seating all tastefully coloured in claret and blue, and every naff corporate touch you could imagine. And toilets fit or human beings? Naturally.
I have a simpler suggestion – it’s called “The Big Top” first developed apparently by an American called J Purdy Brown. Because that is what we seem to be fit for at Upton Park. Clowns are supposed to make you laugh with their clumsy lolloping feet and their exaggerated klutz-like behaviour; superannuated professional footballers are not. But can anyone honestly say that recent performances, especially away from home, where we have thrown away 2-0 leads twice in succession and then failed on both occasion to win these games against 10 men, are anything other than the stuff of clowns whose natural home is not a football stadium but a circus tent?
I’ve been a loyal supporter of the Zola Revolution and am still a believer, but I am starting now to get just a little tired of hearing vacuous garbage such as: “it was a strange game”, or “it was a crazy game’. I think we need to face the grim truth and have a solid and thought-out strategy for dealing with it that goes beyond what he and Steve Clarke have already attempted and, so far this season, failed miserably with.
The fight-back against Arsenal and the crucial win over Aston Villa seemed to indicate we might be approaching a turning point, but the pathetic collapse to a very ordinary Everton reserve side, and the farce of handing a lifeline to Hull City, one of the poorest teams in the league – to the extent that we needed to conjure the equaliser to rescue a draw – suggest that we have not reached that turning point yet.
Everyone likes to look for positives. We scored three goals away from home; Carlton Cole is back (even if he has forgotten which end he needs to head the ball into); Da Costa scored a neat goal; the weather wasn’t too bad… (help me, please, I’m running out of positives). But I do think we have to face up to how bad it is sooner rather than later.
I’m quite expecting our circus-like goings on to continue at least up to Christmas. We may win or draw a game or two along the way but if we continue to “defend” in the manner we have done so far this season, we are also likely to suffer some very heavy defeats (especially to Man U and Chelsea) which will seriously affect our goal difference – and in the scramble at the bottom goal difference may be a decisive factor (Wigan take note).
So what is to be done? Well, here’s a little mantra for our back four to start chanting: “Giving away free kicks just outside our penalty area is not big and not clever. Don’t do it.”
Perhaps our defenders should remove the SBOBET logo from their shirts and replace with “FRAGILE: Do not shake. Handle with care. Keep upright” because they are showing serious signs that they just can’t cope. Faubert was unlucky with the penalty decision but he plainly does not know how to defend. Slow-motion Gabbidon looks a shadow of the player he once was. Upson looks about as interested and motivated as my cat when it’s shagged out and sleeping on the washing pile. He also shouldn’t be captaining the team (that’s Upson not my cat) as he shows no leadership or inspirational qualities. And if he’s not sure what “inspirational” means he should think about what ex-hammer Jimmy Bullard meant to Hull last week. Upson was very lucky not to have been responsible for handing Hull a fourth goal because his challenge on a Hull forward near the end of the game was a far more obvious penalty than the one the ref had already given.
This time last year I was mightily relieved that the irrepressibly boring Curbishley had been dumped. And quite rightly too. Despite the lack of many points on the board by the end of October I had faith and optimism that what Zola and Clarke were doing would pay off in the longer run.
Of course I don’t want Curbs or anyone like him back here but I have to admit that I’ve run out of optimism and faith – and patience. I have no expectations at all of us progressing, just a faint hope that a few teams will struggle even more than us and by some miracle we survive. I have no idea what Zola and Clarke are expected to achieve with the piss-poor squad we have. Selling our better players and either not replacing them or bringing in injury prone dodos or second rate Italians from Serie B, cannot do anything but weaken us. We are seriously missing James Collins, and don’t tell anyone you heard me say this, but we are missing Lucas Neill too.
For the first time in more than four decades of following West Ham I am craving a really boring 1-0 win, followed by another excruciatingly boring 1-0 win. Six points and two clean sheets would do wonders wouldn’t it? How to do it I don’t know because, in order for that to happen, we need to playing teams of our level – like Grimsby or Darlington. I’m not sure that Burnley fit the bill and as for Man U…
We have literally taken our eye off the ball. While we were focussed on how lightweight we were up front, with Deano permanently crocked (like we just noticed) Keiron Dyer almost permanently crocked, and Bellamy long gone, we hadn’t noticed the huge hole that had been dug in our defence especially around the right back position. I think we have all been surprised that given our lack of any natural goalscorers, we have actually managed to score 19 goals in our 13 league games to date and that 9 different players have found the net for us. While a proven goalscorer would be a welcome arrival in January, the key areas that have to be strengthened if we are to give ourselves the best chance of survival must be the full back positions. There is no adequate cover for Ilunga, who hopefully will come back soon from injury, and we have no right back. Any club with speedy or tricky wingers will want to play us every week.
Of course any speculation about what might happen in January must rest on some mugs investing in the “going concern” that West Ham masquerades as. The likely scenario if we are not taken over is not nice. It is total meltdown…which kind of means that the players have to somehow lift themselves to get results in the next few weeks so that not only will someone out there want to buy us but that players may want to come here to build an exciting and successful future for themselves. I’m trying hard here to remain positive but to be honest I can’t even convince myself.
Back on the pitch, I don’t think we will be able to hold on to Upson in January (even though he is playing poorly). He wants to maintain his England place to go to South Africa next summer and he won’t do that in a defence that is shipping at least two goals every week. So we need to be thinking now of who will be the next captain. To many supporters, Scotty Parker might seem the obvious choice but I don’t think his temperament is right. He may be a tidy and skilful player but he gets booked very frequently and has tantrums. What he’ll be like when he turns three years old I don’t know. A year or two back I could imagine Mark Noble being groomed for the role of captain but his progress seems to have halted, and though I have not heard that he is injured he was left out of the Everton game and didn’t make the squad against Villa. has he had a big falling out with management?
There are two players that currently show the potential for leadership on the pitch although both will no doubt be targets for the poachers and vultures in January and we will need to work hard to persuade them not to jump ship. They are Jack Collisson and Valon Behrami. Keep both of them and make one the captain and we may have a chance of staying up and even climbing the table.
In the meantime enjoy the game today. Accept that whichever team gets the second goal might not win. Look out for jugglers and tightrope walkers and Faubert the Clown. COYI!!!!
Walking on air
OLAS 470 November 8th 2009
So fortune doesn’t always hide. Sometimes it favours the brave – and we will see few performances this year as brave as the one on Wednesday night when we should have got mullered by a superior Villa team. A coolly taken penalty just before half time by Mark Noble gave us an unlikely lead in a game in which we were being outthought, outmuscled and thoroughly outplayed. Not surprising since we had lost two key players to injury early in the match. When Villa were generously handed a penalty three minutes after the break the omens did not look good but Greeny made a miraculous save. He may show more fear of crosses than your average vampire at the moment, but he also made two stupendous saves to keep us in the game n the first 45 and added a couple more in the last 45.
His penalty stop was only respite though – a few minutes later he was clutching air as Ashley young’s wonder strike hit the roof of the net. But we refused to lie down and die and the second period was much more even. West Ham never lost hope and when Villa were reduced to 10 men we sniffed an inconceivable victory. No one deserved the winner more than Zavon who had played magnificently substituting for Carlton. He chased every lost cause, gave defenders a torrid time and won the penalty as well as conjuring the winner.
There were a few other heroes out there as well. Behrami and Collisson were magnificent using power and skill to drive us forward. Da Costa had a shaky first half but was a tower of strength in the second. And little Scotty Parker did not want to be on the losing team and didn’t stop running. We kept our shape and our spirit and, against the odds, got our reward.
I hope Zola had a peaceful, sweet sleep before he had to wake up to the stark reality of our rapidly thinning squad shedding more bodies. At this rate he’s going to have to raise Ashton from his slumber, give him a couple of crutches and tell him to get out there.
More hammer blows arrived with the news that Alan Curbishley won his case for constructive dismissal. I hope we pleaded guilty as fuck. Yes he was stitched up and encouraged to go – because he was boring and shite, and Alan, even if you pick up a couple of million we can ill afford, you still can’t buy a personality. According to the papers Hull are interested in him. They deserve each other.
Still Wednesday night belonged to West Ham and its ever loyal fans – an unforgettable night, to set us up nicely for the visit of Everton.
It was at a West Ham versus Everton match rather than through some strange druggie experience or an experiment with levitation that I first discovered what the term “walking on air” meant. We’re going back a few years now to 1980 and the cup semi final replay at Elland Road - at that time home ground of a cheating, boring but successful top league side called “Leeds”. Remember them? Now they top the same league that contains Leyton Orient, Milton Keynes Dons, Yeovil (need I go on? Ha ha ha! – the harder they come the harder they fall, one and all).
Anyway, back to the Everton game. We had been fortunate to secure a replay as Everton had the better of the first game at Villa Park and deservedly took the lead through Brian Kidd but we came back pressing hard for an equaliser and Clever Trevor laid one on for Stuart Pearson. If I remember rightly there was a couple of sending offs but my only other real memory of the first game, played at Villa Park, was of a little toerag of a Villa supporter running off with my West Ham scarf which was hanging out of our car window as we stopped at lights near the ground. He’s probably about 40 years old now and I hope he feels thoroughly ashamed of himself and that his act of wanton theft brought some suitably bad karma (eg Wednesday night’s result!)
While we were struggling to get back into the game, the other semi-final was taking place – Arsenal v Man U – so even if we won we had a mountain to climb at Wembley. Arsenal got the better of Man U that day and we went on to the replay at Elland Road with the prospect of a London derby cup final. A whole division below – few gave us a chance.
Leeds - the town - was a place I was very familiar with at the time. I had spent three happy baked beans, curry and beer-consuming years at university there between 1976 and ’79, watched West Ham there a couple of times (we won once!) and spent many a Saturday outside rather than inside their ground leafleting against the National Front/BNP who had a big and ugly presence there at the time. As well as attempting to twist the minds of impressionable youngsters living hard lives, against some of their fellow citizens purely on the colour of their skin, they also engaged in violent unprovoked attacks on those they saw as opponents. One night they turned up on the university campus and randomly attacked a student with a fire extinguisher leaving him with a fractured skull. On another occasion a maths lecturer, known to them for his anti-fascist activities was attacked with a broken glass while drinking in a pub, and nearly lost an eye. Young Asians in the town were frequently abused and attacked. Eventually the police came down on them and several of their street fighters ended up doing time.
Their gang was led by particularly scary and rather gaunt guy, strangely called Steve Gaunt. I was always curious what happened to him, and found out many years later that he had hired himself out as a mercenary to Croatia during the wars of the former Yugoslavia and managed to get his foot blown off. Doing a bit of googling it appears that nearly 30 years on he is still posting on the websites of far right loons who believe that some members of the human race are less than human, which suggests that my inkling that his brains were located mainly in his feet, might have been spot on.
I met up with some of my mates from the Leeds days recently and we got talking about Steve Gaunt. After I told them about the fate of his foot, my mate Dave, quite deadpan, says, “Well, I guess he needs only one jackboot these days!”
Anyway, back the Everton game. The atmosphere in Elland Road that night was electric and the game was completely end-to-end. But After 90 minutes the teams could not be separated. As we reached the end of the second period of extra time there had been a goal apiece – Bob Latchford headed in for Everton and Alan Devonshire scored a gem for the hammers. The last player anyone would have imagined would win the game with a header was our left back – the original Frankie Lampard - but that’s what happened in the 118th minute and he ran straight for the corner flag to engage in a bizarre celebration ritual. We counted down the seconds, the whistle blew, and we were at Wembley! (Well, actually we were still in Leeds, but you know what I mean).
It was coming back to Leeds Station that I experienced walking on air. I just couldn’t feel my feet touching the ground; it felt like we floated all the way. There were terrible problems on the line on the way back and we were held in no-man’s-land for ages, pulling into Kings Cross around five in the morning – but hey, who cares, we were going to Wembley, where we famously beat Arsenal 1-0 to win the cup.
What’s the odds on one of our defenders heading in the winning goal this afternoon (in the right end)? Me, I’d settle for any Hammer putting in the winner, even Ashton with his crutch. COYI!!!!!
So fortune doesn’t always hide. Sometimes it favours the brave – and we will see few performances this year as brave as the one on Wednesday night when we should have got mullered by a superior Villa team. A coolly taken penalty just before half time by Mark Noble gave us an unlikely lead in a game in which we were being outthought, outmuscled and thoroughly outplayed. Not surprising since we had lost two key players to injury early in the match. When Villa were generously handed a penalty three minutes after the break the omens did not look good but Greeny made a miraculous save. He may show more fear of crosses than your average vampire at the moment, but he also made two stupendous saves to keep us in the game n the first 45 and added a couple more in the last 45.
His penalty stop was only respite though – a few minutes later he was clutching air as Ashley young’s wonder strike hit the roof of the net. But we refused to lie down and die and the second period was much more even. West Ham never lost hope and when Villa were reduced to 10 men we sniffed an inconceivable victory. No one deserved the winner more than Zavon who had played magnificently substituting for Carlton. He chased every lost cause, gave defenders a torrid time and won the penalty as well as conjuring the winner.
There were a few other heroes out there as well. Behrami and Collisson were magnificent using power and skill to drive us forward. Da Costa had a shaky first half but was a tower of strength in the second. And little Scotty Parker did not want to be on the losing team and didn’t stop running. We kept our shape and our spirit and, against the odds, got our reward.
I hope Zola had a peaceful, sweet sleep before he had to wake up to the stark reality of our rapidly thinning squad shedding more bodies. At this rate he’s going to have to raise Ashton from his slumber, give him a couple of crutches and tell him to get out there.
More hammer blows arrived with the news that Alan Curbishley won his case for constructive dismissal. I hope we pleaded guilty as fuck. Yes he was stitched up and encouraged to go – because he was boring and shite, and Alan, even if you pick up a couple of million we can ill afford, you still can’t buy a personality. According to the papers Hull are interested in him. They deserve each other.
Still Wednesday night belonged to West Ham and its ever loyal fans – an unforgettable night, to set us up nicely for the visit of Everton.
It was at a West Ham versus Everton match rather than through some strange druggie experience or an experiment with levitation that I first discovered what the term “walking on air” meant. We’re going back a few years now to 1980 and the cup semi final replay at Elland Road - at that time home ground of a cheating, boring but successful top league side called “Leeds”. Remember them? Now they top the same league that contains Leyton Orient, Milton Keynes Dons, Yeovil (need I go on? Ha ha ha! – the harder they come the harder they fall, one and all).
Anyway, back to the Everton game. We had been fortunate to secure a replay as Everton had the better of the first game at Villa Park and deservedly took the lead through Brian Kidd but we came back pressing hard for an equaliser and Clever Trevor laid one on for Stuart Pearson. If I remember rightly there was a couple of sending offs but my only other real memory of the first game, played at Villa Park, was of a little toerag of a Villa supporter running off with my West Ham scarf which was hanging out of our car window as we stopped at lights near the ground. He’s probably about 40 years old now and I hope he feels thoroughly ashamed of himself and that his act of wanton theft brought some suitably bad karma (eg Wednesday night’s result!)
While we were struggling to get back into the game, the other semi-final was taking place – Arsenal v Man U – so even if we won we had a mountain to climb at Wembley. Arsenal got the better of Man U that day and we went on to the replay at Elland Road with the prospect of a London derby cup final. A whole division below – few gave us a chance.
Leeds - the town - was a place I was very familiar with at the time. I had spent three happy baked beans, curry and beer-consuming years at university there between 1976 and ’79, watched West Ham there a couple of times (we won once!) and spent many a Saturday outside rather than inside their ground leafleting against the National Front/BNP who had a big and ugly presence there at the time. As well as attempting to twist the minds of impressionable youngsters living hard lives, against some of their fellow citizens purely on the colour of their skin, they also engaged in violent unprovoked attacks on those they saw as opponents. One night they turned up on the university campus and randomly attacked a student with a fire extinguisher leaving him with a fractured skull. On another occasion a maths lecturer, known to them for his anti-fascist activities was attacked with a broken glass while drinking in a pub, and nearly lost an eye. Young Asians in the town were frequently abused and attacked. Eventually the police came down on them and several of their street fighters ended up doing time.
Their gang was led by particularly scary and rather gaunt guy, strangely called Steve Gaunt. I was always curious what happened to him, and found out many years later that he had hired himself out as a mercenary to Croatia during the wars of the former Yugoslavia and managed to get his foot blown off. Doing a bit of googling it appears that nearly 30 years on he is still posting on the websites of far right loons who believe that some members of the human race are less than human, which suggests that my inkling that his brains were located mainly in his feet, might have been spot on.
I met up with some of my mates from the Leeds days recently and we got talking about Steve Gaunt. After I told them about the fate of his foot, my mate Dave, quite deadpan, says, “Well, I guess he needs only one jackboot these days!”
Anyway, back the Everton game. The atmosphere in Elland Road that night was electric and the game was completely end-to-end. But After 90 minutes the teams could not be separated. As we reached the end of the second period of extra time there had been a goal apiece – Bob Latchford headed in for Everton and Alan Devonshire scored a gem for the hammers. The last player anyone would have imagined would win the game with a header was our left back – the original Frankie Lampard - but that’s what happened in the 118th minute and he ran straight for the corner flag to engage in a bizarre celebration ritual. We counted down the seconds, the whistle blew, and we were at Wembley! (Well, actually we were still in Leeds, but you know what I mean).
It was coming back to Leeds Station that I experienced walking on air. I just couldn’t feel my feet touching the ground; it felt like we floated all the way. There were terrible problems on the line on the way back and we were held in no-man’s-land for ages, pulling into Kings Cross around five in the morning – but hey, who cares, we were going to Wembley, where we famously beat Arsenal 1-0 to win the cup.
What’s the odds on one of our defenders heading in the winning goal this afternoon (in the right end)? Me, I’d settle for any Hammer putting in the winner, even Ashton with his crutch. COYI!!!!!
All you need is glove
OLAS 469 4th November 2009
Change is in the air. My heart feels warmer but my hands feel colder. I was aware of the change in temperature a couple of weeks ago. The slightly arthritic joints in my thumbs are my barometer and for a couple of weeks now they have begun to ache. Arthritis is notoriously responsive to temperature shifts. Still I figured I could pick up some West Ham gloves on one of the stalls near the ground on the way to the Arsenal game. No such luck. The stallholders told me it’s not cold enough. It’s a strange conception of business where they don’t sell what the customer wants because they don’t feel as cold as the customer. It’s a bit like going out on a rainy day in search of an umbrella and the shopkeeper or stallholder saying, “No we don’t stock them it’s perfectly dry in here.” No wonder Britain’s economy is going down the tubes. Never mind, because as I said it is feeling so much warmer in my heart.
Even if it wasn’t a victory it certainly felt like one. And to see Whinger pacing up and down like Mr Bean and looking so annoyed and frustrated and depressed emphasised that he saw it as points lost to us. It has been a while since we have shown the character to come back from the brink of defeat but the 2-2 draw against Arsenal should herald a turning point in our torrid season.
After giving fair warning in the first 15 minutes that we were not going down without a fight. Arsenal gradually assumed control. Though they barely deserved to be 2-0 up at half-time, the scoreboard doesn’t lie and it looked like we had a mountain to climb. Fortunately for us Arsenal are a bunch of arrogant tossers and just when they thought they were toying with us and casually seeing out the minutes until their victory was confirmed we came storming back.
Had Parker not been sent off when he was the one being fouled, I think we would have gone on to snatch a winner. Arsenal’s defence was completely rattled and we were riding the little bit of fortune that helped us back into it. You wouldn’t envy any keeper trying to keep out Diamanti’s free kick but Vito Mannone managed to push it right into the danger area where Carlton was quick witted and brave enough to get his head down to it.
With four minutes injury time being added we had to see out what seemed an eternity with our 10 men against the full 11 of one of the Europe’s top teams. That Arsenal failed was down to two factors – Robert Green with a wonder save to compensate for being at fault on the two goals; and the true fighting qualities of our team when they were undeservedly up against it.
In those last few minutes I felt more proud of the team than I have all season. They worked for and covered each other with absolute commitment and still tried, with the numbers against us, to go forward in search of a winner.
I thought for once we would see a fair representation of our display on Match of the Day. Silly me. Apart from our two goals all they showed were Arsenal’s attacking moves, yet the match stats show pretty even numbers of shots and corners. Between the tossers on MOTD and the morons who think it will boost ratings to hand free air space on Question Time to those who would deny free speech to everyone they disapproved of, if they ever got a sniff of power, BBC1 is not my favourite channel at the moment.
A few players deserve special mention both for positive and negative reasons. At half time I told my mate that our only hope of getting back into the match was getting Noble off and Diaminti on and this conversation took about 10 minutes to filter down from the Doc Marten’s Upper to our chirpy Italian coach. If the game started to shift back to us when an aggressive and tricky player like Diamanti came on, how much more so when Hines joined the fray, with his pace and willingness to run at defenders. Our desire to fight for every ball and drive ourselves forward meant that many times in the first half, even after going behind, we were winning corners and also free kicks which enabled us to float the ball into their danger area – and pretty much each one was wasted by Noble. I’ve been a big fan of his, when others have got on his back, but he seemed to be seriously lacking in confidence and ideas.
Which made it all the more surprising that he Noble kept his place in the starting line up at Sunderland, though to be fair, from what I saw of the game on Match of the Day, his game had picked up. Also back to his very best was Jack Collison who was the provider for both the goals and who worked his plums off during the Arsenal game.
When we went two goals up at Sunderland in 36 minutes the effect of the comeback against Arsenal was evident, and both goals were taken with great aplomb. Franco showed strength and speed to get to Collison’s low cross when challenged by two defenders and Cole took the ball in his stride beautifully before despatching it without any hesitation. You have to give Sunderland credit for their fight-back in the same way that we earned it a week earlier. They had won four on the trot at home and last time out beat Liverpool. They are building a good side and deserve their place in the top half, so a 2-2 result at the end was perhaps disappointing given that we had been two up but probably fair to the efforts of both teams. And more importantly suggested that we have broken the habit of losing.
It seems that 2-2 is our signature at the moment, with three of our last four league outings ending in that score. More like this and we will stop being known as “The Hammers’ and be renamed “The Desmonds”.
Now we have two home games in the space of a few days to prove that we have turned the corner, though the opponents in both will undoubtedly be tough. Aston Villa and Everton drew with each other at the weekend. Both have an abundance of skilful players. First up it’s Villa for whom Ashley Young and Gabriel Agbonlahor always stand out. And of course it’s the return of the Ginger Pele who has made an excellent start at his new club. He will know Carlton Cole’s game inside out, which is why will need something a little extra to unnerve the Villa rearguard. To me, that makes the case for starting with Zavon and bringing on Franco as reinforcement later in the game if necessary. I’d be tempted to start with Diamanti instead of Noble too, despite Nobes improvement at the Reebok, as he adds a bit more power, unpredictability and imagination to the line up and can really deliver in dead-ball situations. A big game under the floodlights where three points would truly make a difference. And as Desmond 2-2 said:
“I never doubted that ultimately we were going to be free, because ultimately, I knew there was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.”
Let’s prove it tonight. Get out there and get at them. All we are looking for is truth, life, freedom and a 3-1 scoreline. COYI!!!!!!!
Change is in the air. My heart feels warmer but my hands feel colder. I was aware of the change in temperature a couple of weeks ago. The slightly arthritic joints in my thumbs are my barometer and for a couple of weeks now they have begun to ache. Arthritis is notoriously responsive to temperature shifts. Still I figured I could pick up some West Ham gloves on one of the stalls near the ground on the way to the Arsenal game. No such luck. The stallholders told me it’s not cold enough. It’s a strange conception of business where they don’t sell what the customer wants because they don’t feel as cold as the customer. It’s a bit like going out on a rainy day in search of an umbrella and the shopkeeper or stallholder saying, “No we don’t stock them it’s perfectly dry in here.” No wonder Britain’s economy is going down the tubes. Never mind, because as I said it is feeling so much warmer in my heart.
Even if it wasn’t a victory it certainly felt like one. And to see Whinger pacing up and down like Mr Bean and looking so annoyed and frustrated and depressed emphasised that he saw it as points lost to us. It has been a while since we have shown the character to come back from the brink of defeat but the 2-2 draw against Arsenal should herald a turning point in our torrid season.
After giving fair warning in the first 15 minutes that we were not going down without a fight. Arsenal gradually assumed control. Though they barely deserved to be 2-0 up at half-time, the scoreboard doesn’t lie and it looked like we had a mountain to climb. Fortunately for us Arsenal are a bunch of arrogant tossers and just when they thought they were toying with us and casually seeing out the minutes until their victory was confirmed we came storming back.
Had Parker not been sent off when he was the one being fouled, I think we would have gone on to snatch a winner. Arsenal’s defence was completely rattled and we were riding the little bit of fortune that helped us back into it. You wouldn’t envy any keeper trying to keep out Diamanti’s free kick but Vito Mannone managed to push it right into the danger area where Carlton was quick witted and brave enough to get his head down to it.
With four minutes injury time being added we had to see out what seemed an eternity with our 10 men against the full 11 of one of the Europe’s top teams. That Arsenal failed was down to two factors – Robert Green with a wonder save to compensate for being at fault on the two goals; and the true fighting qualities of our team when they were undeservedly up against it.
In those last few minutes I felt more proud of the team than I have all season. They worked for and covered each other with absolute commitment and still tried, with the numbers against us, to go forward in search of a winner.
I thought for once we would see a fair representation of our display on Match of the Day. Silly me. Apart from our two goals all they showed were Arsenal’s attacking moves, yet the match stats show pretty even numbers of shots and corners. Between the tossers on MOTD and the morons who think it will boost ratings to hand free air space on Question Time to those who would deny free speech to everyone they disapproved of, if they ever got a sniff of power, BBC1 is not my favourite channel at the moment.
A few players deserve special mention both for positive and negative reasons. At half time I told my mate that our only hope of getting back into the match was getting Noble off and Diaminti on and this conversation took about 10 minutes to filter down from the Doc Marten’s Upper to our chirpy Italian coach. If the game started to shift back to us when an aggressive and tricky player like Diamanti came on, how much more so when Hines joined the fray, with his pace and willingness to run at defenders. Our desire to fight for every ball and drive ourselves forward meant that many times in the first half, even after going behind, we were winning corners and also free kicks which enabled us to float the ball into their danger area – and pretty much each one was wasted by Noble. I’ve been a big fan of his, when others have got on his back, but he seemed to be seriously lacking in confidence and ideas.
Which made it all the more surprising that he Noble kept his place in the starting line up at Sunderland, though to be fair, from what I saw of the game on Match of the Day, his game had picked up. Also back to his very best was Jack Collison who was the provider for both the goals and who worked his plums off during the Arsenal game.
When we went two goals up at Sunderland in 36 minutes the effect of the comeback against Arsenal was evident, and both goals were taken with great aplomb. Franco showed strength and speed to get to Collison’s low cross when challenged by two defenders and Cole took the ball in his stride beautifully before despatching it without any hesitation. You have to give Sunderland credit for their fight-back in the same way that we earned it a week earlier. They had won four on the trot at home and last time out beat Liverpool. They are building a good side and deserve their place in the top half, so a 2-2 result at the end was perhaps disappointing given that we had been two up but probably fair to the efforts of both teams. And more importantly suggested that we have broken the habit of losing.
It seems that 2-2 is our signature at the moment, with three of our last four league outings ending in that score. More like this and we will stop being known as “The Hammers’ and be renamed “The Desmonds”.
Now we have two home games in the space of a few days to prove that we have turned the corner, though the opponents in both will undoubtedly be tough. Aston Villa and Everton drew with each other at the weekend. Both have an abundance of skilful players. First up it’s Villa for whom Ashley Young and Gabriel Agbonlahor always stand out. And of course it’s the return of the Ginger Pele who has made an excellent start at his new club. He will know Carlton Cole’s game inside out, which is why will need something a little extra to unnerve the Villa rearguard. To me, that makes the case for starting with Zavon and bringing on Franco as reinforcement later in the game if necessary. I’d be tempted to start with Diamanti instead of Noble too, despite Nobes improvement at the Reebok, as he adds a bit more power, unpredictability and imagination to the line up and can really deliver in dead-ball situations. A big game under the floodlights where three points would truly make a difference. And as Desmond 2-2 said:
“I never doubted that ultimately we were going to be free, because ultimately, I knew there was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.”
Let’s prove it tonight. Get out there and get at them. All we are looking for is truth, life, freedom and a 3-1 scoreline. COYI!!!!!!!
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