Once again it’s been a while, other things have been taking over. That said, those things are looking up for future so lets get cracking.
With the past. Burnley at home to be exact. Shambles, shambles shambles. A team playing at half effort, feeding off a crowd that sensed it was their time to make their point. And they did, but not with what you read in the papers.
Pitch invasions, are Scotland 77, Millwall 2017, not 4 separate blokes clutching sheets of A4. That is encroachment and no where near an invasion. At all. That said , seeing the fella with the flag brought all of the memories of the bond scheme protests flooding back, and I’ll admit annoyed me a bit. at the time. Now I know a bit more of the backstory fair play to Paul and I hope it all works out for him.
As for the swarm around the directors box, until someone actually shows me some evidence regarding things being thrown, I have no problem with the protest. These guys need to know how they have taken the soul of a club and replaced it with false promises and blatant lies. Now being substantiated by the Mayor of London stating there were nearly 150 incidents that day, most of which were stopped. A lie proved by the police reports. He also said all events were planned and co-ordinated. LOL, you try and get a signal in the stadium and you will know why this is bollocks as well. And lastly it would have been easier to organise and co-ordinate if we had full ground wi-fi promised by Karen Brady.
Since then, we have had meetings and statements from all concerned. We now seem to have 3 separate supporters groups, and people supporting at least 2 from the 3 at any one time. We need to come to some sort of consensus over how we move this forwards, as if we are to be a useful lobbying mechanism we need to have a united front.
My opinion for what it’s worth is the current board either do what they said they would when we moved and deliver on the promises regarding seating, transfers, and the “matchday experience”. The biggest of those being transfers, bar none. Or they sell up. Not that that guarantees anything as Liverpool and others can testify. They won’t as they are still locked into contacts with the stadium owners if they sell up within a certain timescale. But preserving the heritage of the club with museums and making the ground more West Ham has to be in the future (whoever owns it) . Actually with all other parties involved losing money, when will Sadiq Khan just give it to us at a knock down price? No more taxpayer contributions (thanks for paying for extra policing yesterday) and we get to make it a real football ground. But its not all bad, we have the largest display screen in Europe !, but don’t have the wrap that we were promised around the ground to go with it. More lies.
This all moved the circus onto yesterday and Southampton at home. A 6 pointer with the spectre of further bother for the board.
From the get go, we were on fire, with everyone looking alive, including Kouyate. I was interested to see Joe Hart in goal. Maybe Moyes had decided that he would have literally nothing to do and therefore left him in. He was correct.
The back 4 of Ogbonna, Cresswell, Zabaleta and Rice, kept the Saints very quiet. Midfield took a small dent when Antonio went off early, but Kouyate moving out onto the right until Edmilson was warmed up gave us out first goal, when he bombed down the wing and provided the pull back to Mario, who promptly smashed it into the roof of the net. Marko again was amazing , although he finished with a knock after about 70 minutes. By that time he had two goals against his best mate Mark Hughes.
This game was done and dusted by half time.
How we missed Masuaku. His skill and talent and shielding for Cresswell, just stopped the Saints coming anywhere near their right wing. That said I would have banned him for life for what he did.
Southampton looked like us against a top 6 team. All good until you get up the pitch, then it all falls apart. They were useless if i’m honest, Zabaleta out sprinting Nathan Redmond being the obvious candidate for where the problems lie. They just didn’t want it. Mark Hughes will take two teams down this season and maybe he needs to take a look at himself as well.
And let’s take a more critical look at WHU. Everyone played their part, but Mario needs to be more precise if he is to stay. The amount of simple passes going wide and short was noticeable, as was his talent in finishing his first Premier League goal. Hart’s distribution was again poor. And Noble was very lucky not to be sent off in the first five minutes.
MOTM Marko. All day long.
Mrben09 