Gutted is not a word I have used at Football since Mr Gerrard smashed in a 40 yarder past us in Cardiff in the FA Cup Final in 2006. That was a game we had led and should have won, and one moment of brilliance meant FA Cup glory eluded the Hammers once more.
Continue reading “WHUFC vs Manchester Utd 13/04/2016 FA Cup Qtr Final Replay”
Where do I start with this one? Near the end as we have Man U tomorrow and time is of the essence I’ll be brief.
Once again big team syndrome prevails at Upton Park. Arsenal were allowed to dive and cheat their way through a game whilst WHU were booked for the slightest indifference. We had a goal ruled offside (Lanzini) early doors, that clearly wasn’t.
Arsenal’s first goal came about after Monreal dived in the box, and ref said no foul and indicated a dive. So surely a free kick ? No, but we stop, thinking yes, and Ozil scores.
We also had another ruled off for some reason I don’t know. We were 3-2 up and Carroll got involved with the Arsenal keeper and defender, by the left hand post. There was a tussle and Carroll came out with the ball. Ref doesn’t blow. Carroll passes to Payet. Ref doesn’t blow. Payet taps the ball in and the ref blows??? WTF????
So MOTM is obviously Carroll for his first WHU hatrick. The game ended 3-3 and probably ruined our CL chances and Arsenal’s Championship assault.
One thing I should add, is the atmosphere. When we scored our second to equalize the game, while everyone on the pitch was celebrating with Carroll, Noble was running around the centre circle on his own, and Adrian was shaking hit net , while facing the crowd, like a madman. And the roof was coming off.
Same again tomorrow night and we win. The normal pessimist me has gone. I even tweeted while we were 2-0 down that I thought we would win (just as Carroll got his first)
#COYI
Palace are without a win in the premier league this year and WHU are tearing up trees pushing for a CL spot. But in true West Ham style we blew a gift. Everyone seems to the blaming the ref, but I differ, and will explain below.
Continue reading “WHUFC vs Crystal Palace EPL 2015- 2016 02/04/2016”
Don’t know where to start with this one. For the first time in a long time (Everton in the league cup last year 🙂 ), WHU delivered on a night under lights..
Continue reading “WHUFC vs Liverpool FA CUP 4th rd replay 09/02/2016”
Continue reading “WHUFC vs Aston Villa 02/02/2016 EPL 2015- 2016”
Dimitri Payet was Man of The Match vs Manchester City… Here’s a few reasons why 🔥 pic.twitter.com/HbGIpnZ2lu
— WHUFC_Daily (@WHUFC_Daily) January 24, 2016
It’s that time of year again, when thoughts turn to cup glory and the romance and fantastic stories that the FA Cup normally delivers.
None of these were apparent at Upton Park yesterday where an uninventive WHU beat a Wolves team looking for a draw.
The main problem from a hammers perspective was there was no one in the midfield who wanted to go forward until Payet came on. Noble, Song, Zarate, and Obiang were happy to pass it sideways all day long. Zarate tried a couple of shots from distance, and as usual refused to pass to players in better positions. Song and Noble seemed to be trying to make the perfect pass through defence with little success. All in all, this left Jelavic isolated and he lost interest pretty early on.
What also didn’t help was that Wolves played with 8 players back most of the time, which as Sheffield United demonstrated to Man U yesterday, is a little frustrating. This surprised me ,as they had some good breaks, and made the space, but then ran out of people to pass to due to them all being in their own penalty box.
It will not surprise anyone to know the first shot on target for either team was in the 16th minute.
Finally , Payet and Carroll were introduced and the game changed, for the better. It’s amazing how Payet lifts the whole team to play better. With 5 minutes to go, Carroll laid off the ball for Jelavic to smash in a great half volley.
So , we are in the hat for the next round, but will have to up our game to progress in this competition.
MOTM (after my slagging of the midfield) was Pedro Obiang. He kept breaking up play through tackling and sharp reading of the opposition passes.
The first Saturday of the year was a little busy as I had just flown in from Vegas / via Dallas. BA had lost a bag and I needed to get to the early kick off between the Hammers and Liverpool.
I took my seat just after Liverpool had gone close with a cross goal shot, and seemed to have come out of the gate pretty quickly. WHU, however seems to be shutting them down quickly and efficiently. About 30 seconds later Enner Valencia popped in a cross which was met by Michail Antonio to take lead for West Ham. Nice work Sir. The lad who couldn’t get in the team now has 2 in 2.
Liverpool as you would expect had the lions share of the possession, but no end product. Benteke had a one on one after Collins had misread a ball, but Tomkins came across from his right back birth to shepherd the ball out of danger. As mentioned earlier, WHU were harrying and closing down in numbers , so threats were kept to a minimum . Emre Can hit the bar just before half time, but apart from that , WHU were good for the half time lead.
In the second half West Ham played more forward, with Kouyate winning a lot of ball and bring it forward and the midfield were more fluid and interchangeable. In fact , it Was Mark Noble who popped up on the right flank to cross the ball which was met by Andy Carroll to double the lead, and promote some rather enthusiastic celebrations from the number 9, who was let go by Liverpool having been (and still is) their record signing. Liverpool were left to stream forward looking for something, and Klopp didn’t shirk by replacing defenders with midfielders, probably noting that even though we were 2 up, some lucky deflections and defending was contributing to the score. Not to mention the woeful shooting by Liverpool. I cannot remember the last time a team shot so many balls over the bar.
WHU managed to close out the game to win the first game in 2016 with the same scorers as the last game of 2015, and jumped to 5th being the early game.
Once again WHU win a game which will be reported as poor play by the opposition.
However, WHU played well and were all over the pitch. I think Slaven has realised that letting the opposition have the ball all day is not profitable and quicker teams (such as Liverpool) will cut through us (like Leicester did).
The reintroduction of Payet, was very much welcomed by the home faithful, and I get the feeling he only came on after we were 2 nil up, and his name started to ring around the ground. He played a bit of a cameo, but still managed to set up Carroll, and turn Lucas inside out. Hopefully we hold onto him throughout the transfer window. Other players who deserve a mention are James’ Collins and Tomkins. Both were strong in the tackle, and Tomkins seems to be relishing his right back spot (although some of his bombing down the wing needs some finesse !) . One player who really needs to be looked at and I have mentioned it before is Enner Valencia. We paid over 13m for this guy and he is knocked off the ball at the drop of a hat. Personally I don’t think he is EPL standard and would happily bin him this window.
MOTM today was the much maligned Andy Carroll, who battered Liverpool’s defence today, never gave up and got his desserts with a great goal to seal the game.
It’s been while, what with International breaks, holidays and golf trips (missed the Chelsea Game, bah). Last week saw us get played off the park by an organised Watford team, while our visitors were smashing big Sam’s Sunderland all over the place.
Traditionally, these games are close, with honours even at Upton Park last year, with Everton winning the league game, and WHUFC winning the League Cup game in dramatic style with Adrian scoring a penalty in the shootout.
West Ham lined up with Reid back in the centre of defence following the Ginger Pele’s sending off last week. Carroll was favoured up top again, with Zarate and Valencia on the bench, as Moses took up his slot on the right hand side.
Hopes were high as The Hammers entertained their struggling opponents under the lights at the Boleyn. Newcastle were not having the best start of the season ever, but WHU were yet to register a point at home, whilst taking full points on the road at Arsenal and (historically) Liverpool.
Since that game at Anfield, some 4 players have joined WHU and one made his debut last night as Victor Moses came in for Obiang, and Tomkins found himself once more in the right back berth. Mark Noble also made his first appearance as officially the club captain, although with the fans he has held that position since Scott Parker left.
WHU started the game with a spring in their step, with Payet and Koutyate especially taking the game to the Geordies. The players seemed happy to close down, move around and make quick passes. Something we haven’t seen for a while. In the 9th minute a neat interchange between Noble and Sakho fed the ball to the edge of the box to Payet, and he shaped up perfectly to meet the ball in his stride to smash it into the top corner
As is usual for WHU the game started to drift and although we maintained the attacks, we were not really making the best of our chances. The Newcastle No.8 Vumon Anita was playing as a one man defence and was stopping everything and everyone coming his way. We continued as is now usual to half time, content to be ahead but not really pushing. But it must be said we were playing further up the pitch than normal and not buggering about passing it around the back.
It made a change not to go in 2-0 down at home, so happy days.
Once again we started the second half with the wind in our sails attacking the Bobby Moore. We cleared an early attack from Newcastle to Moses who ran the whole length of the pitch and got himself in on goal. He shoots, beats the keeper, but not the bar. The rebound comes straight out to Payet who volleys it in to make it 2-0. Big shout to the the team here, as Payet ran off on his own to celebrate, everyone else was congratulating Moses, who had his head in his hands ! From here on, Payet ran the show and gave us his full set of tricks and passes. This started to breed confidence within the team and soon everyone was at it. Against a better team we may of suffered , but Newcastle could not capitalise on the showboat circus. Even Mark Noble was taking people on and getting crosses in. There were back heels and fancy passes all over the place. The crowd were loving it, but occasionally you could see where the loss of the ball could reduce the deficit easily. The biggest cheer of the evening was reserved for the reintroduction of Andy Carroll (again), who nearly picked up a yellow card with his first touch (or non touch as it was on Tim Krull). His five minute cameo ended the night perfectly. The crowd were chanting “Are you watching Allardyce” for the last few minutes in between cheering on the back flicks and nutmegs.
2-0 to the Irons and 5th place in the league with Man City up next to hold on to our perfect away record this season (!). Why are we playing better? My theory is that now that we have a real squad, competition for places is driving players to play a higher standard of football. Lets hope this continues Messrs Bilic and Dicks
On a side note, Kevin Nolan was on Goals on Sunday this weekend and spoke glowingly of the club and his time there. With the stick people (myself included) have given him for the last 6 months, fair play to him, especially having his boy in a WHU kit. In parting, good luck to him in his future endeavours.
So in short, we have a top, top, quality flair player in midfield,backed up with some steel, we can pass balls all over the shop without fear, we score some tremendous goals, we can defend and attack in numbers, we are all in it together, and are always on the edge of going too far and screwing it all up.
THE WEST HAM WAY IS BACK !!!!!
#COYI
MOTM: Payet, big shouts to Moses, Kouyate, Noble, and Tomkins.
Mrben09 