Month: September 2019

True to form, West Ham fluffed their lines at Villa Park on Monday night and failed to put in the performance necessary to claim a spot in the top three.  Or perhaps they were given the wrong script.  One that was a variation on respect the point rather than the promised we’re gonna score one more than you.  Was it one point gained or two points lost?

Following the exuberance of the Norwich victory, it was disappointing that the Hammers showed such little variation in attack.  It was possession for its own sake in safe areas lacking quick breaks, penetration and precious little width.  If Sebastien Haller is to become the striker we have waited so long for, then he needs far better service from those behind him.

So, instead of putting clear daylight between ourselves in 3^rd place and the rest of the table , we are at the bringing up the rear of a gaggle of six teams on eight points – including today’s visitors, Manchester United.

The Red Devils are now a pale shadow of the club who have dominated English football for much of the Premier League era.  The post-Ferguson era is playing out much like the post-Busby one did, although they are unlikely to get relegated this time around.  Now on their fourth full-time manager in 6 years, they have the look a fading star who once graced the big stage but now has to be content with the occasional appearance in panto.

It’s not that Manchester United have bad players, they just don’t have enough good ones – certainly not good enough to present the credible title challenge that their followers demand.  They have fallen way, way behind their two north-western neighbours and have no coherent plan to bridge the gap.  They are obsessed with paying over the odds for big names rather than team building.  Ole Gunnar Solskjær looks out of his depth in the Old Trafford hot-seat, like a modern day equivalent of Frank O’Farrell (incidentally the Hammer’s oldest living ex-player who will celebrate his 92nd birthday in a few weeks time).

Despite all the negativity, an encounter with the Red Devils remains one of the highlights of the footballing calendar.  Success is relative and they have a reputation and world-wide following that others can only dream of.  Champion’s League qualification (unless through the Europa League backdoor) looks beyond them once again.  Interesting to compare their odds of a top six finish (2/5) with our own at 5/1, as I don’t see so much between the teams.

Rumours of Champion’s League reform resurfaced again in the week with proposals to change the group stage from four groups of eight to eight groups of four – guaranteeing additional money-spinning games that would ensure the big teams stay well ahead in the revenue generation stakes.  Among further worrying proposals are suggestions that that domestic leagues would need to be reduced in numbers to compensate and that CL games would be moved to the weekend to attract a larger global TV audience – something I predicted some years ago.  Personally, I would prefer if the rich clubs simply packed their bags and left domestic competition altogether.  Perhaps then this could be one of our last meetings with the Manchester club.

Back to more pressing matters and Manuel Pellegrini will have at least one selection decision to make following Arthur Masuaku’s red card on Monday.  Pellegrini is not a risk taker and will likely opt for Aaron Cresswell rather than call in Ben Johnson.  Cresswell has really lost his way in recent times and badly needs to rediscover his mojo.

Elsewhere, there is a general consensus among fans (or at least those active on social media) that Andriy Yarmolenko needs to be benched this weekend after disappointing on Monday – from hero against Norwich to villain against …… Villa.  But in Michail Antonio’s absence what are the options?  We have yet to see what Pablo Fornals is all about and there are questions whether the Three Amigos (he, Manuel Lanzini and Felipe Anderson) are too much of a muchness to mix it up in midfield and effectively unlock defences.  It looks so promising on paper but so far has been unable to deliver.

Jack Wilshere is a player who can offer something different. He is an intelligent footballer adept at progressive passing and switching the focus of attack, but the worry is that more than one of him, Mark Noble or Robert Snodgrass on the pitch at the same time leaves the team exposed for pace.  The situation may be complicated if Lanzini fails a late fitness test all things being equal, my guess is that Pellegrini will go for Fornals to replace Yarmolenko in the starting eleven.

I cannot see there being any further defensive changes (aside from Masuaku) and with two clean sheets in a row we must now be entering uncharted territory.  With the visitors seemingly being awarded a penalty every outing, I will be holding my breath every time Angelo Ogbonna makes a challenge in the box.

Manchester United will be without Pogba and Martial while James faces a fitness test.

This weeks on-field whistle blower is Anthony Taylor from Manchester (hmmm?) while the eye in the sky will be Graham Scott from Oxfordshire.  Even with a low bar set for refereeing competency, Taylor is often picked out for special mention.  Expect at least some degree of controversy during the course of the game.

Our pundit friends are once again united in their predictions and both Lawro and Nicholas have surprisingly gone for a 2-1 home win.  Part of their thinking may be that  the Reds will be tired having also played on Thursday night.  It will interesting to see if that is a factor and whether West Ham will exploit it.  I fully expect the visitors to get a penalty at some stage making a third straight clean sheet unlikely.  I do believe that the Hammers can win the game though, but much will come down to the right attitude.  I am fancying a welcome 3-1 victory.

Confidence high, on a good run of form, coming up against a side still trying to find their feet in the Premier League, who are short of goals and strikers, who didn’t have the most impressive home record even in their Championship season; and with the prospect that a win will rocket them into 3^rd place (or mathematically 2^nd even) in the Premier League standings.  What could possibly go wrong?  If history has taught us anything with West Ham it that the proximity of disappointment is inversely proportional to degree of optimism.  Or will the new look Hammers finally manage to throw off that age-old gypsy curse that has held them back over the years?  It’s not the despair, it’s the hope I can’t stand!

The international break creates a vacuum in social media frenzy of club football coverage, in which two things happen.  One is that supporters are left to dwell on events  that immediately preceded the break – without another quick fix, pessimism deepens while optimism soars.  West Ham ended with a swashbuckling victory against Champion-slayers Norwich City that rounded off a strong run of positive results following the disastrous opening day defeat.  The law of unrealistic expectations has been allowed to flourish in this void and elevated the Hammers from erratic write-offs to realistic top six finishers.  While I hope this can be so, I sense that it’s a little too early to get completely carried away.  You can only beat what is in front of you but the fixture computer has kindly presented an unusually benign start to the season – with the one challenging fixture ending in the traditional white-flag moment against Manchester City.  Still, if the game by game improvement we have seen since can be sustained it will result in an interesting and entertaining season.

The second feature of the international breaks has been the viral outbreak of punditry where any ex-player not talented enough to go into coaching is desperate to share a controversial opinion or two to anyone willing to stand the next round.  I have never believed that, as a general population, ex-players have greater insight into the game than many supporters – but their spread has become pervasive and as difficult to get rid of as Japanese knotweed.  It makes me nostalgic for the days when ex-players simply became pub landlords or went out to sell insurance.

Over the past two weeks, a procession of pundits have been volunteering their views on the prowess of Declan Rice and declaring when he should move to Manchester United and for what price.  How dare they?  He is not the first of our current players who have been described recently as ‘too good for West Ham’, with the list variably extending to Manuel Lanzini, Felipe Anderson, Issa Diop and Sebastien Haller.  Of course, if they had said ‘too good for an underachieving mid-table outfit’ then they may have a valid point.  It is a conundrum for any aspiring top six pretender.  If you don’t show progress and ambition then you will not hold on to your prized assets.

Prior to the current round of games, I came across a presentation from a chap at Opta which showed West Ham in second place (to Manchester City) as far as ‘Expected Goals’ were concerned.  Now I’m not really sure what an ‘Expected Goal’ is but it is good to see us up at the top.  As we hadn’t scored as many actual goals as the ‘Expected Goals’ tally I assume we are better at creating chances than at converting them.  On the flip side, the Hammers ranked poorly on ‘Expected Goals Against’ where we had also conceded fewer actual goals than the stats suggested.  The upshot was that West Ham were higher up the table than they should have been statistically.  Make of that what you will!

Today’s team pretty much selects itself and, barring any late breaking injuries, it should be the same that started last time out.  The front four can cause plenty of problems for the Villa defence but they must not forget their defensive responsibilities.  Watching Liverpool at the weekend it was noticeable how prepared Salah and Mane were to regain possession once the ball had been lost – even if it meant sprinting back to their own penalty area.  Rice and Mark Noble will need to keep their wits about them to cope with the midfield threat of Grealish and McGinn and that contest could well be pivotal to the outcome of the game. Although Angelo Ogbonna has done enough to keep his place ahead of Fabian Balbuena I can’t get rid of that nagging sensation that he is overdue one of his calamity moments.

It is good to see Aston Villa back in the top flight.  England’s second city needs to be represented in the Premier League but it could well be a tricky season for the Villains.  They have invested heavily in the squad and will be expecting to see a return in the points column sooner rather than later if Dean Smith is not to become ‘at risk’ in the manager’s sack race.  As so often with newly promoted clubs it is goals that are difficult to come by and in Villa’s case the situation has been hampered by injuries and suspension.

Today’s referee is the preening Mike Dean from The Wirral, with VAR duties down to Martin Atkinson.  VAR continues to divide opinion as to how it impacts the flow of the game and remains very reluctant to reverse the on-field decisions of referees – the Haller non-penalty against Norwich being a perfect example.

Returning to the world of punditry both Lawro (BBC) and Charlie Nicholas (Sky) have the game down as a 2-1 home win.  There was a strange comment from Nicholas suggesting that West Ham were ‘predictable’ – something which I would have thought was the polar opposite of reality.  I would still like to see more width in our attacking play but there is plenty of flair.  And I would still like to see Nathan Holland given some minutes on the pitch.  It seems odd that for all his promise he still only has one sub appearance, in a September 2017 League Cup tie, to his name.

As Captain Sensible would say “You gotta have a dream” and so I will risk my 5 shillings this week on a third consecutive West Ham league win.  Resist the early Villa energy before seizing the advantage with a controlled 2-0 victory.  The resultant league table can become my screensaver for the remainder of the season.  COYI.

I have to admit that I really enjoyed our performance a fortnight ago when we comfortably beat Norwich 2-0 with goals from our new French striker, Sebastien Haller, and the fit again Andriy Yarmolenko. As Norwich pressed forward when they were behind, we managed to create several chances to add to our tally, and in reality should have scored five or six quite easily. We didn’t because our finishing didn’t match our approach play, we were unlucky at times, and Krul in the Norwich goal made some fine saves. Haller finished off a fine attack with a relatively simple finish, whereas Yarmolenko showed great technique with a left-footed volley barely a minute after an early left-footed volley with similar impressive technique had rebounded from an upright.

Two things in particular pleased me about our performance. The first was that we had players who could break and counter attack at pace. In particular our front four (Haller, Lanzini, Anderson and Yarmolenko) didn’t hang around when given the opportunity to attack, and they really impressed me with the way they looked as though they had been playing together for a long time. Added to that, our two full backs, Fredericks and Masuaku, who never get the best press for their defending abilities, also showed great pace when attacking and supporting the front four, and created chances for the others. Masuaku provided the assist for the first goal, but I was impressed with them both.

The second thing to please me was the way that the front four added to the often missing concept of defending as a team. It looked as though they had been working hard in training, and they harried the Norwich players to a greater extent than I can remember our attacking players doing for a while now. They added to the efforts of Rice and Noble who both had fine games. Mark Noble looked rejuvenated, and we all know he is not the fastest player, but he showed that he can still contribute and dominate the midfield when surrounded by players blessed with more pace. Defensive organisation was first class.

Yarmolenko and Lanzini both surprised me with how well they have come back after long lay-offs, Anderson demonstrated his sublime skills throughout the game, and Haller looks to be the most complete forward since the days of Dean Ashton, a player he reminded me of with his style of play.

Norwich played but some nice tippy-tappy football but rarely threatened our goal, mainly due to the way we defended as a team, and their prolific goalscorer Teemu Pukki had barely a kick. I was impressed with Todd Cantwell in the Norwich midfield. The loss of Zimmerman was a blow to the visitors following a heavy challenge from Haller, but in my opinion it wasn’t as bad as Farke was suggesting. The referee didn’t blow for a foul even (which he should have done), but I’ve seen players booked for similar challenges but it certainly didn’t warrant any more than that.

The referee, Paul Tierney, was a poor advert for his profession in my opinion. He waved away three penalty appeals, one of which was so cast iron it was laughable that he didn’t give it. What was even worse is that VAR is now in existence, but somehow the referee working behind the scenes somehow missed it too. It seems to me that after the early (over) use of VAR which should only be used to correct decisions which are clearly and obviously wrong, it has now gone the other way, and they are perhaps under instruction not to get involved at all!

By the end of the weekend the league table (still early days of course) showed us in seventh place with seven points, which is seven more than we had after the first four games heading into the international break a year ago. If we can just match our performance of the last campaign in the remaining 34 matches, then we would finish on 59 points, which last time around would have been enough for a seventh placed finish. Of course I am hoping we can do even better than that but I am not going to get too carried away, despite the fact that we have only lost one league game since unluckily going down 2-1 at Old Trafford on 13^th April, winning five and drawing two of the eight games played in that time, only losing (as almost everyone does) to Manchester City.

The two teams we have beaten this season (Watford and Norwich) now sit in the relegation places, and we face the third member of that club on Monday evening when we travel to Villa Park in front of the TV cameras. Villa had an impressive win against Everton (2-0) but were unlucky when their late “equaliser” at Palace was incorrectly ruled out by a referee blowing his whistle for a dive which was subsequently shown to be a clear foul on Grealish. Quite how it can be suggested that our referees are high on the list in the world in terms of their ability is beyond me I’m afraid. I’ve seen little evidence of that this season despite them supposedly getting help from VAR. Villa’s other defeats came on the opening weekend at Tottenham, and then at home to Bournemouth who haven’t pulled up any trees themselves so far this season.

The betting for this match is very even with West Ham the fractional favourites to win at around 6/4, with Villa around 8/5, and the draw about 5/2. A win would see us moving on to ten points from five games, with an average of two per game. This would relate to 76 points over the course of a whole season! Wouldn’t it be good if we were looking at achieving those kind of figures, which of course we won’t, but it’s good to dream isn’t it?

I would anticipate that the manager would start with the same eleven that began against Norwich, but he often throws in a surprise or two, or somebody picks up a late injury which we don’t know about. But I am confident that he won’t change it this time. A point away from home is always good, but I am hoping for three in a narrow victory, perhaps 2-1? I enjoy Monday Night football on TV when we are away from home. But is there a way of keeping the sound of the crowd but removing the commentary and punditry at the same time? I wish there was.