Author: Richard Bennett

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The game began and what a bright start we made. As I had thought, the absence of Noble and Carroll meant that we would be moving the ball at pace, without too much reliance on long balls to our big striker, and trying to pick up knock downs. Now I am a fan of Carroll, but sometimes believe that when he is in the team we don’t vary our playing patterns sufficiently to pose a threat to the opposition.

Lanzini, Payet, Feghouli, and others were linking well with some incisive one touch passing at speed, and I really felt that this was going to be some game. And then came the moment after about a quarter of an hour which has been the subject of much debate since. Anyone reading this will know what happened, and probably around 99% of everyone I’ve read or heard agrees that the referee, Mike Dean, blundered badly, and in effect ruined the match from that point on. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a collective gasp in a stadium when he produced the red card.

The team were galvanised and played with great organisation, but it was always going to be a big ask to hold a team of the quality of Manchester United for 75 minutes. Reid and Ogbonna were splendid at the back, the magnificent Obiang had an imperious game in midfield (why do so many people overlook his great qualities and importance to the team?). Lanzini was having an excellent game too, and the rest of the team were playing their part.

We had one let off in the first half when our old friend Post came to the rescue (as he did three times in the Hull game), after Randolph had made a terrific strong arm save to keep the ball out at point blank range. Goal line technology proved just how close it was to crossing the line when I watched the game back on TV after returning home. It would have been a travesty if a goal had been scored, because from my position directly in line, Lingard (I think) seemed well offside when he hit the post, and I couldn’t understand why the linesman hadn’t raised his flag.

The introduction of Rashford and Mata in the second half gave the men from Manchester greater impetus, and as we tired, it was no great surprise when we eventually conceded a goal. Shortly before we fell behind, Lanzini put a great ball through to Antonio, but one on one with De Gea he managed to hit his legs. Mourinho described it as a great save after the game, but I felt it just hit him. Antonio had failed to connect with a header earlier, so we did have chances to score the first goal of the game. Had one of them gone in then it might have been a different story.

Post came to the rescue a second time when a shot slid under Randolph’s grasp, but their second goal killed the game off. From my position at the other end Ibrahimovic looked as if he might have been offside, and this was later confirmed when I saw the replay.

All in all the players can be proud of their performances, something which cannot be said of the match officials. Dean ruined a game of football for 55,000 people with his blunder, and for any watching on TV. There is no excuse for the linesman who blundered badly, too. Quite frankly they were inept throughout the match, and had no feel for what was happening. We always hope for consistency from referees and no two games can be compared exactly, but anyone who saw Ross Barkley’s horror tackle on Jordan Henderson recently, which Dean only thought worthy of a yellow card, can only shake their head in bewilderment in his treatment of Feghouli. Barkley’s potential leg-breaker provoked an explosive melee in the Liverpool v Everton game, whereas in our game, some United players were consoling Feghouli about the unjustness of his sending off.

Of course Jones played his part in the dismissal, arching his back and rolling over and over, but a minute later he was running around without the slightest limp. Some United players ran to the referee when the two players collided, but they always do that, don’t they?

Quite frankly the whole match was ruined by one person who thinks he is part of the entertainment. He is not. Scathing attacks on his performance have come from all quarters after the game. Garth Crooks on BBC, Alan Smith and Niall Quinn on Sky post-match, and other ex-referees such as Poll, Halsey and Webb all agreed it was a ruinous decision for the game. One that I found especially interesting was from Keith Hackett, who famously sent off Tony Gale in the FA Cup semi-final 25 years or so ago. Hackett, in his piece, admitted his major error in sending off Gale, and remarked that Dean should have thought longer over his decision.

My next letter of complaint is to Mike Riley, the referees supremo. I was disgusted by the ruination of my evening entertainment, and I will demand to know what he is going to do about the poor state of officialdom which falls under his control. Too many games are being spoiled by inept officials.

And it is about time that video replays were introduced to try to eradicate some of these gross errors. But that is for another article …

[Click Here for Part One of this Article]

Monday 2^nd January wasn’t my favourite day of the year so far. The day began OK and we spent the morning taking down the Christmas tree and decorations, moving the tree to the garden to be chopped up and re-cycled at a later date, and depositing the boxes of various decorations into the loft for another year. A leisurely lunch and then we set off for the London Stadium at around 2.30pm.

We live in Bury St Edmunds so it is quite a trip when we go to watch West Ham, but not as far as some fans travel. Listening to the radio on the A11 I realised that the kick off was at 5.15, not 5.30 that I had in mind, but still leaving us sufficient time to get there on time. As we reached the junction with the M11 there was a long tail-back of traffic, and we crawled for most of the journey to Epping, which is where we normally catch the Central Line train for Stratford.

Unfortunately the car park at Epping, the largest car park on the whole London Underground network, was full, as were all the nearby streets within walking distance of the station. Never mind, we drove on two further stops down the line to Debden and parked there. We got to Stratford around 40 minutes before kick-off and set off on the long winding route march to the ground. As West Ham fans have found, although a direct walk from Stratford station to the London Stadium shouldn’t really take that long, it is not possible to take the most obvious route, and we are directed on a journey that takes twice as long in dark streets with minimal lighting. You can see the stadium but don’t seem to be getting much nearer following the prescribed course.

When we reached the stadium the crowds outside and queues to get in were much bigger than usual. I soon found out the reason why. The security checks and bag searches were more extensive than usual. When my bag was searched, security found that, in addition to gloves, hats, the programme, a few snacks etc. we were trying to enter the ground with two dangerous articles, namely two plastic bottles of Pepsi Max. Now I don’t have a problem with security searches normally, but this time it was as if we were going through Stansted airport. I was surprised that they didn’t ask us to remove our belts and shoes!

I was not impressed with the manner of the way we were treated by the security guy, who was insistent that we deposit the offensive Pepsi Max plastic bottles in a bin before entering the ground. I asked to speak to his boss and was directed to another security guy. I explained that the drinks were for our journey home. With the game ending after 7pm, and the difficulty in entering the Westfield Centre after the match to buy a drink for our return trip, I demanded to know why we were not allowed to keep our drinks.

I was informed that no dangerous weapons are permitted in the ground! Now I am a long- time supporter in my sixties, and have been watching the team regularly since 1958, and have never before been stopped from entering the ground with plastic bottles of drink. I stood my ground and insisted that Pepsi Max was not a dangerous weapon. What did they think I was going to do with it? Apparently it is considered to be a danger to fans if I threw it! I explained I had no intention of using it as a missile. I wanted a drink on the way home. Now I sit about as far away from the opposition fans as is possible in the London Stadium, and not even Steve Backley could throw a javelin that distance, let alone a soft drinks plastic bottle. Surely coins are a much more dangerous missile; what next, will we be asked to remove all coins from our pocket before entering the stadium?

The chief security guy finally agreed that we could take the plastic bottles into the ground if we removed the caps! Kick-off time was approaching and I wasn’t prepared to discuss the matter any further, so we took of the caps and entered through the turnstiles with our full bottles of Pepsi-Max without the tops. I did ask the security guy for the name of the authority that imposed the rules, and he informed me that it wasn’t actually a stadium requirement as such (plastic bottles of drink are sold within the ground), but a strict directive from Gold and Sullivan, and I should direct my complaint to them.

When I reached my seat as Bubbles began, I was relating the story to the grandfather who sits next to me with his six year old grandson. He had the same experience and his grandson’s fruit shoot also had to have the cap removed before they entered the ground. Very frustrated by my experience I sat down to watch the game. I looked at the teams and was pleased to see that the manager had selected a side which was likely to have more pace than usual. I was looking forward to the game. I really felt that it was going to be a good one. I will write a letter of complaint to Messrs. Gold and Sullivan tomorrow to see what they have to say.

(To be continued …..)

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The last time we played Swansea was when they visited us in the final Saturday home game last season at Upton Park in May when they inflicted on us our heaviest home defeat of the season, beating us 4-1. It was fitting to return the compliment and beat them by the identical score on Boxing Day.

When Andy Carroll blasted the fourth goal into the Swansea net in injury time it got me thinking. When was the last time we scored four goals away from home in a Premier League match? The last time I can actually remember was once again on Boxing Day in 2008 when we visited the south coast and put four goals without reply past Portsmouth. And where are they now? Craig Bellamy scored twice with a goal apiece from Carlton Cole and Jack Collison. We may have scored four goals on our travels since then; it certainly happened three or four times in the Championship, and also at least once in the FA Cup, but not in the top flight unless there is a game that has slipped my mind. And it would be very unusual to forget scoring four goals away from home as it doesn’t happen very often.

Of course along with all our fans I was delighted that we picked up the three points. It is always good to win games without being totally convincing. That’s ten points now from four games, a haul that I don’t think we bettered in four consecutive league games in the last memorable season at Upton Park. We now have the opportunity to go one better and make it four wins on the bounce with the forthcoming trip to Leicester.

The manager thought that it was our best performance of the season and he may be right. But we shouldn’t be kidding ourselves into thinking that everything is now OK. We are not yet playing at the level we achieved last season and, of course, many theories have been put forward as to why that is. I believe that injuries and confidence are two important factors, as is fear when you are involved in a relegation tussle. As we distance ourselves further from the bottom three, I hope that the fear factor will diminish, and hopefully disappear altogether.

We are not yet out of the woods, but I can see us pushing on now into the top half of the table. These days many people appear to believe that most things in life are either black or white. This is exacerbated within the media and social media. When we are not winning then the team is (fill in the missing word or words), and a range of expletives are directed towards the players, the team, the manager, and the board. When we turn it around and start to win games the expletives disappear, and all of a sudden the world is a wonderful place and we’ll soon be challenging for a top four spot. The reality of life is that most things are not black or white, but one of 50 shades of grey in between. We weren’t the worst team in the Premier League earlier in the season, and now we are not the best.

We fall somewhere in the middle of the pack, and we need to improve if we really want to be challenging at the top. Of course, to coin a popular phrase, there are lots of positives to come from our recent revival in terms of results, but still a way to go to be totally convincing in performance. But we are all a lot happier than we were early in December when we sat in the bottom three. So well done to all involved for where we are now, but it’s not “job done” yet by a long way.

One way we have improved over last season is in our ability to beat teams in the bottom half of the league. Of course we finished in the top half last season, but one of the (justified) criticisms levelled was our inability to pick up as many points as perhaps we should have done against the lesser teams. In 2015-16 we managed an average of 3.33 points in our two games against each of the teams who finished in the top ten, but could only get an average of 3.2 points against the bottom ten teams. This season at the moment we sit in a relatively comfortable eleventh place, and our six victories have all come against teams who are below us. Only two of our twenty-two points have come against teams above us, the away draws at Old Trafford and Anfield.

Because of the way that the fixture list has worked out, seven of the ten teams above us will be visiting the London Stadium in the second half of the season. Hopefully we can balance out our results and pick up more points against the top teams, just as we did last season. The loss of players to the African Nations Cup will hit us harder than many others, and it remains to be seen if any significant transfer activity will be able to strengthen the team. Nonetheless, the results are looking good at the moment. Long may it continue.