I’ll take you back to the 2015-16 season, our last at the Boleyn Ground. It was less than ten years ago. Slaven Bilic was our manager. Our first three away games that season were at Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City. Daunting eh? None of it. We beat all three. Arsenal first 2-0, then Liverpool 3-0, and finally City 2-1. Those were the days! Those teams went on to finish second, eighth and fourth in the Premier League. We finished seventh, just one point below Southampton who were sixth.
Ironically, we lost two of our first three home games that season at ‘fortress’ Upton Park (how we forget that it wasn’t a fortress!), 2-1 to Leicester City who went on to become 5000-1 shock league champions, and 4-3 to Bournemouth who eventually finished sixteenth. Newcastle, Norwich and Aston Villa were relegated.
Yes, all this happened less than ten years ago. How times change!
We’ve played against City eighteen times since and haven’t managed to beat them again in the league, with just two draws in that time, both at home. We did knock them out of the League Cup in 2021 winning 5-3 on penalties after a 0-0 draw. We’ve never kept a clean sheet against them in our last 24 league fixtures. That happened in 2012, 0-0 at Upton Park. If I’m not mistaken our last clean sheet in an away game at Manchester City came at Maine Road towards the end of our relegation season 2002-3, when with Sir Trevor at the helm for the very first time as our caretaker manager we beat them 1-0 with a Freddie Kanoute goal. Our longest winless run in league games against a specific team is also 18 games – that is against Liverpool between 1983 and 1994. So we will be setting a new record if we fail to win today.
I doubt that many of us saw it coming but Manchester City are having their worst run in many years. They have only won one of their last five home games in all competitions, and their 2-0 win at Leicester last weekend was only their second win in their last fourteen games in all competitions, having drawn three and lost an incredible nine. Nobody thought that this would happen after they began this season as they have the past few.
A worrying statistic is that Haaland hasn’t scored at the Etihad in his last four games there, October being his most recent when he scored the only goal in the game against Southampton. These are the kind of records that worry me – runs that undoubtedly end when West Ham are the opponents. He has a good record against us having scored seven goals in just five games but six of those have been at the London Stadium, including a hat trick when we went down 3-1 in August.
We have hardly been pulling up trees ourselves but we did go on a four game unbeaten run recently which ended when champions-elect Liverpool thrashed us 5-0 in our last game. We didn’t even muster a single shot on target in the game although we came close hitting the woodwork three times. But let’s be fair we were well and truly outclassed, which I fear may happen again today.
Are there any statistics that give us any hope? Nothing too startling I’m afraid although we have managed to score in eight of our nine Premier League away games this season, just failing once when we lost 3-0 at (high flying) Nottingham Forest. And we’ve only lost one of our last four away league games (at Leicester 3-1 despite having 31 shots). In that time we’ve beaten Newcastle 2-0, drawn 1-1 at Bournemouth, and won 1-0 at Southampton.
The unavailability of Jarrod Bowen after he suffered a fractured foot against Liverpool is a big blow for a side lacking in the attacking department, but these things happen and we are paying the penalty now for failure to recruit in this position in the summer. How quickly can we rectify this in the transfer window that has just opened? I’m not holding my breath!
I’m always hopeful where our team are concerned but I’d be surprised if we got anything out of this game. Despite City’s poor form I’ll bet they are relishing the thought of our visit there today.
As per my recent articles I’ve penned a rhyme to preview the game:
City versus West Ham played in the North-West,
Not our favourite game, we’re never at our best,
They’ve won 14 out of last 15, it’s their happy game,
We always seem to struggle, it always seems the same.
We’ve lost eight games in a row there since year 2015,
They’re always much too good for us, it’s what we’ve always seen.
It’s eighteen winless games now, it’s really quite obscene,
Since that 2-1 away win there, ten years oh so lean!
24 Premier League against them since our last clean sheet,
At least one goal conceded every time we meet,
A similar tale v Sunderland was something we did fix,
We went and beat them 8-0, Sir Geoffrey netted six!
City win their first league game ‘most every calendar year,
Seventeen out of eighteen, a record that we fear,
But we haven’t lost our first game in the recent seven,
If we could take that up to eight we’d be in seventh heaven.
In City’s last two home games they’ve been the first to score,
But neither did they win, they didn’t close the door,
They’ve never failed to win in three when they’ve scored the first,
Perhaps we can shock them and make their bubble burst.
Under The Hammers 