2022

Obviously I write this with a bit of disappointment, but I’ll try and give it a go.

First up, we probably put out our best side, with a patched up Zuma back in defence. No Coufal, which probably doesn’t bode well for him in the summer if Johnson is ahead of him.

Anyway, our biggest game for 46 years, home in a European semi. Exciting as it gets. Accompanied by my wife. We are playing a team mid table in an arguably worse league. Easy win for the Hammers right ? Yeah, Barcelona aren’t the team they once were……… We are massive…………… Light show, Fireworks, Tifo’s from both side pregame. This is what it all about……………”record scratch noise“

One nil down in under a minute. This is not the script we were looking for. A really simple cross and finish in under 60 seconds could take away our whole season.

And then we huffed and puff and were probably the better team in first half, and Antonio’s long overdue goal after the longest 20 minutes in football history put us back on an even keel.

Bowen had a chance earlier having been put straight through but popped it onto the post. Painful.

Anyway one one at half time and everyone is talking about 3-1’s and all sorts.

Not to be , within 10 minutes our German visitors strolled though our back line again to score the decisive goal in this leg. Kamada was excellent throughout the game and just found himself in the right place from an Areola parry.And after that they controlled the game and exhibited excellent game management to get the game over the line.

Bowen had a chance with an overhead kick going off the bar in the dying seconds. That may have been harsh on the visitors, but I would have taken it.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the away support. Despite the horror stories flying around about the visiting fans on social media, I thought they were fantastic, and they made the atmosphere ramp up another few percent ! Might be a few fines coming their way for flares, etc but fair play to them.

So we now have to condense our whole season down to 90 minutes away from home with a one goal deficit. Some players need to step up. Fornals was quiet, Souchek and Antonio were wasteful and Declan was frustrated and maybe seeing the gulf between his team mates and the opposition (and his team mates and himself?). Quick shout out to the much maligned Said Benrahma. He looked amazing when he came on and just clipped the post with a long range effort. More of this please.

Put the kids out against Arsenal this weekend, and rest up for next week. It may mean no European football at all next year but when will we get this chance again? We seem to play better under pressure so lets ramp it up !

MOTM (Kamada – Frankfurt)

WHUFC (1) vs Olympique Lyonnais (1) Europa League Q/F 07/04/2022

Ever been on a roller coaster and half way through you start to question its safety but you cannot get off ? Welcome to last night at the OS, for our game against Lyonnais.

On the way to the ground, the atmosphere was a little flat compared to Sevilla. But still stupidly busy. Over an hour before kick off, the main outside concourse was squeezing room only.

Declan led us out as the 3rd West Ham captain ever to lead a team out at this stage of a Euro Tournament, and we should have fancied ourselves against a team 9th in their league. The warning signs were there however against Everton, a game which we got over the line but had to work.

With Lanzini out suspended (concussed ?) Benrahma made up the usual 11. As did Fredericks at right back, presumably because Johnson was still feeling the knock he took for England ? Or is Ryan being preferred again ? I suppose we will find out at Brentford this Sunday.

The game was pretty flat as well to begin with, and once again , same as Seville, the lower tier standing in 132 caused all sorts of problems with us (232) in the front of the upper tier. People were complaining to no avail, and tempers raised, but the stewards were not remotely interested. Personally I only get annoyed if someone stands in front of me at the cinema, and my view wasn’t that obstructed. But I understand some (including the 6 year old lad in the row in front of me) , can’t see and it’s not right. But if you are in the back row of the lower tier and everyone is standing, what do you do ? And if the employees of the stadium aren’t interested, why should the daytrippers be bothered.

However the stewards did get interested when what I can only call (judging by the amount of people who were “asked to leave” ) a massive fight broke out in 131 half way through the half. And we go into the break 0-0. Oh no we don’t. Just before half time, Cresswell was sent off for no reason at all. He put a hand on NDombele which wouldn’t have knocked over the aforementioned 6 year old. The ref has a checkered history regarding bent behavior, has already been called out for seemingly dodgy behavior this season and decided a straight red was the order of the day. Now, stopping a goal scoring opportunity is a red. Running away from the goal is not a goal scoring opportunity.

Second half was real backs to the wall stuff. Lyon to their credit can move the ball around and their right winger was having a field day. Johnson replaced Benrahma for Cresswell, and did his best. We had 3 attacks of note. One of which led to some scruffy defending, which saw Bowen open the scoring. We have missed this lad, and once again he does the business. We then had another chance about 3 minutes later when Bowen put a ball in on the break to a rampaging Antonio, who then made a complete mess of it, and I’m ashamed to say, the 6 year old may have learned some new vocabulary.

The last decent chance we had was interrupted by our second pitch invader of the evening, a life ban is not enough for him . Chances of being West Ham…..0. Twitter rumor mill puts him at Chelsea but who really knows ?

In between all of this Lyon got their equaliser from Areola palming a ball well wide but it got picked up by their other winger who put it in square to make an easy tap in for Lyon via their Spurs loanee (grrr) . We could have thrown it away with some nice judo throws in and around the box from Zuma and Fredericks in the time added on (8 minutes !) , but managed to keep it out.

So we take a draw across the Channel and hopefully we can keep 11 on the pitch, and put this tie to bed. The other tie is also open with Barca and Frankfurt also drawing.

One other football observation. Our midfield to a man (Rice, Benrahma, Soucek and Fornals) looked very out of sorts. Was it the formation of the opposition or just tiredness? Rice was quite sloppy in places, but he had to not get a yellow to be available next week, so that may have contributed.

Late entry to MOTM. Him and Zuma were excellent all night, but Dawson taking names in the last 2 minutes was a sight to behold, so well done Big Daws !

WHUFC 1 Watford 0 EPL 2021/22 09/02/2022

I came into this game not expecting a lot , after catching the game on Saturday. As usual breaks don’t really suit us and our poor showing in the transfer market didn’t exactly inspire confidence either. And then we had CatGate. I’m not going there. It’s been done to death everywhere and the club need to make a stand and ensure the correct disciplinary procedures are undertaken.

I was surprised how busy it was outside the ground so skipped in early, and caught the now customary light show. Despite the empty seats shown in the photo, it was pretty much a full house come kick off.

The game itself was very reminiscent of the Palace games last year (no surprises with Mr Hodgson taking up the reins at Watford recently) . Watford were compact and disciplined , and broke well. We were stifled somewhat, but just needed to break a line or 2 to get the upper hand.

Watford fans were enjoying themselves booing Zouma at every opportunity, and at one point chanting RSPCA ! He actually played well, but maybe against a home crowd this weekend coming at Leicester it may be more of an issue. Easy to ignore when you are miles from the support.

We were very poor. Rice was out of sorts, and everyone else seemed between 5 and 6 /10. Watford were on top , no doubt, but didn’t have that clinical last touch, or bit of magic.

Benrahma had one chance saved when Bowen made a great run and pass to leave him in the box unattended. And that’s that.

0-0 half time and my pre-match prediction of that very score was coming to fruition.

Second half was better for West Ham, but Watford were no way out of it. Both teams had chances but they were mainly of the lash it goalward variety.

About the hour mark, the game took a subtle change and West ham were getting that ball into the box to a player more often, . We kept prodding and were getting better chances but still nothing clear cut. Rice was head and shoulders above his first half performance. Lanzini and Fornals were very busy, and Antonio was still a little lost.

And then the stars aligned with Jarrod Bowen receiving the ball from the sub Lanzini, and getting a lucky deflection to break the deadlock.

And then it went back to stalemate again for the remaining 20 minutes.

So not the most exciting game and we rode our luck, but that’s 2 games on the spin where we have ground out a result despite being the worse team. Are we lucky, or are we trying harder ?

MOTM Dawson. Big Daws does it again, got his head in where it was needed (probably with some extra motivation, bearing in mind the opposition), and at one point in the first half went on a unheralded mazy run past 2 opposition players to hold possession, when Zouma was down injured.

WHUFC 3 – KRC Genk 0 Europa League 21/10/2021

Looking after parents during Covid, only 3000 miles a year in the car, kids sleeping in the back, Alton, Farnborough, dad has a steam train. 12 carriage trains into Waterloo, early shifts, no one in the office. 5 a side legend, 6 a side, 8 a side on a 6 a side pitch, over zealous social football games with post game stats. Don’t rate Areola. Choose life.

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West Ham vs Southampton 29/02/2020 – EPL 2019/2020

Match reports have been few and far between this season as to be fair there hasn’t been a lot to report. Injuries , poor placement of players into positions, and non form of key individuals meant things have not been too great.

This report will not really add to this. We played a sub par Southampton team, but we had all our players in the right places, and Bowen got his long awaiting start, and we just tore them apart.

Haller proved the doubters wrong. Completely different player with others around him.

Today was mainly around the other big WHU event of the day. The supporters “stroll”. Basically this was a marched protest from about 1.5 miles outside the stadium ,picking up more and more people as we traveled in. Alone it proved nothing, but maybe it does give cause for concern with the owners that its not 200 “Old men”. There were women and kids and a few old men, who united in the cause that the lies are enough and we need to move forward.

This is where the issue is for me. The cause seems to be to get them out, fair enough. But we need the alternative, and that doesn’t appear to be forthcoming. There are rumours of American Billionaires and Red Bull, but that’s all they are. Best we can get is a climb down and engagement as we continue the relationship.

But lets keep the pressure on. They have already shut down their undemocratic “Supporters Board”. They have suggested holding elections for supporter positions. They will bend over backwards for this to go away, and we need to be constructive with how we use that leverage. First up for me , is let’s test the mettle of the stadium operators and put in a bid. They are losing money hand over fist, and I imagine will take a lowball bid. Once we have control of the stadium, move all athletics duties to Birmingham post 2022. The anniversary games is not a sell out anymore and must cost money to put on.

Once that’s out of the way, we can dig down and reseat the lower tiers into being next to the pitch, a la the Etihad. Yes we may be out of the ground for a year or 2, but it’s not such a big deal ,when we don’t feel we have played at home since 2015 !

So that’s it , the march was good start and hopefully the numbers will get bigger, but we have to have an objective that is achievable else we will be accused of pedaling pipedreams , just like GSB.