Richard Bennett

The Third International Break

Another enforced interlude provides the opportunity to review the season to date

On 9 November one year ago I was writing my first book, Goodbye Upton Park, Hello Stratford, which chronicled West Ham’s final season at the Boleyn Ground. On that exact date I wrote a chapter reviewing the Premier League season as we went into the third international break. Twelve months ago we were just twelve games into the season when it was interrupted for the third time to allow international matches to take place. This time we have played one fewer.

On 9 November 2015, Aston Villa occupied the bottom slot, Sunderland were just above them, and Bournemouth made up the trio of teams occupying the relegation places. Of course, only one of them went down, as the Mackems and the Cherries climbed to 17^th and 16^th respectively by the end of the season. The other two relegated teams, Norwich and Newcastle sat in 15^th and 17^th place on this day. Is this a warning to Middlesbrough and West Ham?

A year ago we were sixth in the table, just one point below Tottenham. Our North London neighbours had only lost once, but drawing half of their games kept them down in fifth place. This season Spurs are unbeaten so far, but drawing six of their eleven games has once again kept them down in fifth. Ironically the first game after this break in 2015 was a visit to White Hart Lane where we were “Kaned” 4-1. History repeats itself fixture-wise this season, but I am hoping that we don’t get a repeat of the score from last time.

What a difference a year makes for Liverpool. This time last year they sat in mid-table and were lucky to be that high thanks to some dubious refereeing decisions going their way. They had just lost at home to Palace and after that flop, some way off the top, Klopp had a strop, caught everyone on the hop, and had a pop at the Kop (not so easy to say) for deserting the ground before the final whistle. A year on they do now sit at the top after a breathtaking demolition of Watford last weekend, a performance matched by Chelsea in their exhilarating 5-0 victory over high flying Everton. Manchester City and Arsenal follow closely on their heels (they occupied the top two positions a year ago) so it looks like the title will be won by one of the top four.

After their unexpected success last season Leicester have reverted to where you would expect them to be and only have one more point than ourselves. The league is very close if you ignore the top seven and bottom two, with just five points separating Watford in eighth and Hull in eighteenth.

We are seventeenth, in part due to a shocking goal difference of minus 9; only the bottom three clubs have a worse figure, Hull (-14), Swansea (-11), and Sunderland (-12). Last season 38 points (or exactly one point a game) was the figure needed to keep your place in the Premier League. This time around a similar pattern is emerging with just the bottom three not averaging a point a game. But we are only just on that level, and with the tough (on paper) run of fixtures to come against teams occupying 5^th, 6^th, 4^th and 1^st, we could easily find ourselves in the relegation mix (usually termed a dogfight) early in December. We really need to raise our level of performance in those games and take something from them.

After that run we have easier games (on paper, again) at home to Burnley and Hull, before visiting Swansea and Leicester to finish off 2016, and to reach exactly the half-way point in the season. But we haven’t shown that we can easily beat “relatively weaker” sides either this season (or indeed last). Our two home victories (out of six home games) were very late 1-0 wins over Bournemouth and Sunderland, we managed 1-1 draws with Middlesbrough and Stoke, and lost to Watford (2-4) and Southampton (0-3). We have managed just six goals in our six home Premier League games, a very poor figure, especially given the fixtures. This is matched by our five goals in five away games. So, eleven games played, eleven goals scored, and eleven points on the board. Not what we were expecting after last season, perhaps!

So now I’ll put my prediction hat on, and say that in the next eight games, taking us up to the midpoint of the season, we will amass a further eleven points taking us up to 22, which would be seven short of where we were in the middle of last season. Anything much less than this and we will still be in potential relegation trouble. The bookmakers think we’ll be OK. We are joint sixth favourites (with Crystal Palace) to be relegated, after Sunderland, Hull, Swansea, Burnley, and Middlesbrough.

How many of our players can look at themselves in the mirror and be pleased with their performances to date this season? Antonio, perhaps, early on for his goalscoring which earned him an England squad place, although the goals have dried up recently. Obiang, who has been man of the match for me in most of the games he has played, and who surely has cemented his place in the starting line-up. Fernandes and Fletcher have shown a lot of promise from limited opportunities, too. As for everyone else, I don’t think any of them have reached the level they played at last season. I am pleased for Aaron Cresswell getting his chance finally in the England squad, though he has hardly played since returning from injury; the call up is based more on his consistency last season, and a new manager prepared to recognise it.

West Ham 1 Stoke 1

Trading Places. Would a different perspective bring new insights to Slaven Bilic.

Pedro Obiang I wonder if Slaven Bilic would like to swap places with me. No I don’t mean that he becomes a writer and I become West Ham’s new football manager. I don’t think that either of us is cut out or suitably trained for the other one’s role. I was just wondering if he would like to swap his touchline view of the game with my seat in the upper tier of the East Stand. I don’t really want to swap, but for just one game I would like to watch the match from his vantage point on the touchline. I’d like to be able to see what he sees when he watches the game from there, because it seems to me that he watches a different game to me, judging by the decisions he makes regarding the team and tactics to be employed for each match. I’m not sure, but I think he would benefit from a different view too.

Last December at Upton Park the match against Stoke ended goalless, but of all the 0-0 games I had ever seen it was one of the best. This time we drew with them again with a goal apiece. But what did I think of the game? Well, it is 100 minutes of my life that I won’t get back. I like to go to football to see us win, but what’s more I like a bit of entertainment. This is my 59^th season of watching us play. I’ve seen very few less interesting games than this.

I don’t have great memories of watching us play Stoke in the past. And this game has been added to the list. Entirely forgettable. At least my journey to and from the game was trouble-free. I haven’t always been able to say that. Past trips this season have included a suicide by someone at Mile End station, another unfortunate individual having a heart attack at Leytonstone, and the evacuation of Stratford station, leading to long delays, and a very long walk to Leytonstone station.

The board held up after 45 minutes suggested that we were going to be “entertained” with one further minute. I looked at my watch to check the time, and looked again more than five minutes later when Mr. Marriner eventually brought the first half to an end. I’m afraid I thought Mr. Marriner had as poor a game as most of the West Ham team. To me, he just didn’t seem to understand the game. This was highlighted by the award of a free kick to us which broke up one of our rare promising attacks a few seconds after a Stoke player had been flagged for offside.

What else can I remember about the game? I can recall a header from Ogbonna, which brought a reaction save out of Grant in the Stoke goal, Payet’s free kick which went just over the bar, and Antonio’s headed goal which apparently would have gone wide if the Stoke defender hadn’t deflected it in. I couldn’t see the deflection from my seat. Perhaps Mr. Bilic had a better view on the touchline. Pedro Obiang, was once again my West Ham man of the match.

Stoke were more organised than we were, and had a definite plan. Bony looked dangerous early on, and created chances which, with better touch and finishing may have led to goals. Our attack had no idea how to penetrate their well organised defence. To me this was epitomised by the excellent full back play of Pieters, who stayed close to Antonio and frustrated the life out of him. But all credit to Antonio for keeping going and once more getting his head on the end of a Payet cross for our goal. Payet, like Noble, just as they both did at the game at Everton last week, were guilty of frequently giving the ball away, either by bad passes, over-elaboration, or getting caught on the ball, leading to swift Stoke counter attacks.

I don’t recall any of our attacking play that could be described as swift. It was ponderous, retention of the ball, perhaps looking to improve our passing statistics at the expense of meaningful football, going sideways and backwards, and occasionally a lump forward to nobody. You could see the building frustration of Ayew who came deeper and deeper to try to get some action with the ball. Lanzini’s touch was a little off, but at least he was trying to inject a bit of pace into the proceedings, realising the need for more urgency and movement off the ball.

I was shocked to see the double substitution on the hour. Don’t get me wrong I was delighted to see both Fernandes and Fletcher come on, two very important players for our future, but not at the expense of Lanzini and Ayew. I would have liked to see both Noble and Payet substituted, but captain and talisman both seem untouchable when it comes to making substitutions. They did however, combine together to create the goal, so perhaps the Bilic view was better than mine.

I like the look of Fletcher, and with some more game time and experience I believe he will prove to be a better striker than both Carroll and Zaza. I can’t see much of a long term future for these two at the club, and I wonder about Payet who seems to be increasingly disinterested. We are all entitled to bad games but his heart just doesn’t seem in it. I can’t recall a single occasion of the crowd singing “We’ve got Payet ….” which has always happened several times every game for more than a season now.

And as for Adrian, what was he thinking? It would have been a penalty if they hadn’t scored anyway. I’d like to see Randolph given his opportunity now. It wasn’t just the goal he conceded, his performances have been below par all season, with the occasional superb reflex save.

But that’s just my view. Obviously Slaven Bilic sees the game very differently from his view on the touchline.

Stoke Preview

A victory today would be most welcome with the difficult run of fixtures to follow after the international break

Embed from Getty Images

I can honestly say that the game against Stoke is not the one that I look for when the fixtures schedule is released in the middle of June each year. In fact I think that when Tony Pulis was in charge, it was probably the game that I least looked forward to. I have never been a fan of watching Pulis’ teams play, and West Brom have now assumed the Stoke mantle for me. Perhaps many West Brom fans feel the same judging by the empty seating in last week’s game at the Hawthorns? Those fans who have been watching for a few years will probably remember the Rory Delap long throw tactic. Stoke would do all they could to attain throw-ins in the opposition half, and then Delap would spend an age drying the ball before launching a long throw into the penalty area, with his team mates blocking off defenders as if it were a game of American Football. Somehow they got away with it, and often went unpunished by referees.

But Stoke under Mark Hughes are different, although they still retain some players who play the game in the same way they did under Pulis, especially Shawcross and Walters. In my opinion Shawcross has always been one of the most over-rated central defenders in the Premier League, and I could never understand the clamour in the media to get him called up into the England squad. That appears to have died down in recent times though. He is one of those defenders often referred to as uncompromising, although I could think of other adjectives to describe his methods.

Last December at Upton Park the game ended goalless, but of all the 0-0 games I have ever seen this one was one of the best. Both sides played entertaining stuff and were applauded off at the finish. There were 34 shots in the game, of which we had 22, and there was a grandstand finish where we almost nicked the points. One of the reasons we didn’t win was the superlative goalkeeping of Jack Butland. He got injured playing for England in a later game, and has been out for a long time. I think they, and England, miss him

When I look back over the past fifty years or more I don’t have great memories of watching us play Stoke. At the Britannia Stadium, in the final game of last season we took the lead and had control of the game. We conceded an equaliser against the run of play and then lost the game right at the death. We pulverised them in the first half but only had a solitary goal at the interval for our endeavours. It should have been three or four with the game wrapped up. We missed stacks of chances, and Stoke cleared about four off the line. One was only an inch or so from being a goal but it just wasn’t going to be our day. In some ways we missed Payet, but we created so many chances it shouldn’t have mattered. We had more than twenty shots on goal to Stoke’s half a dozen.

Going back almost fifty years, in 1967-68 we were 3-0 up at half-time in a league game at Upton Park and we let Stoke back into the game to win 4-3. Two seasons later, almost to the day we were once again 3-0 up at half time, and Stoke fought back to draw 3-3 and were just denied a late winner with a shot that came back off the post! In 1971-72 we met them in the League Cup semi-final that went to four games that had everything (they didn’t have penalty shoot-outs in those days). We won the first leg away 2-1, but Stoke won 1-0 in the second leg at Upton Park when Gordon Banks saved a late-in-the-game Geoff Hurst penalty and it went to a replay. The first replay was drawn and we then lost an incredible second replay 3-2. I can also remember visiting their old stadium, the Victoria Ground in 1973. All I can recall is that a smallish crowd made a lot of noise, and we lost the game 2-0.

In some ways, their start to this season has mirrored our own. They began with a draw at Middlesbrough, and then lost four games in a row, conceding four goals in each of three of those fixtures. They followed this with two more draws, before a recent run of three consecutive victories, albeit against Sunderland, Hull and Swansea, the three teams currently occupying the relegation places. As I knew we were playing them this weekend I watched some of their 3-1 win over Swansea on the Monday night football on Sky. They looked quite impressive, especially Bony who scored twice, and Allen, who has scored four goals from midfield this season. Arnautovic will be missing serving a one match ban, whilst Shaqiri is a doubt for the game.

We haven’t actually beaten Stoke at home since March 2011 when our three goalscorers were Demba Ba, Da Costa, and Hitzlesperger. Where are those three ex-players now? The last time we did record a victory over them was in March 2013 when Jack Collison scored the only goal in the game at the Britannia. But since then we have played them six times in total, drawing three and losing three. Since returning to the Premier League our home record against them has been three draws and one loss, so it is about time we put an end to this run.

They currently sit in twelfth place in the table (to our seventeenth), but are only two points ahead of us, so a victory would take us above them, and we could in theory be in the top half of the table by Saturday evening if other results went our way, although this is unlikely. But with our difficult run of fixtures after the international break, three points would be most welcome, and I predict that we will win a tight game by the odd goal, perhaps 1-0 or 2-1.

I Wouldn’t Bet On It 16

Straight from the striker’s mouth. Going large on a West Ham win.

Fancy A Bet Last week we had some fun bets on West Ham v Everton. It all hinged on West Ham winning or drawing the game. If either happened then we were up. But unfortunately we lost so our balance reduced to 100.0, which is exactly where we started.

This week we’ll have a look at our game at home to Stoke. On Paddy Power we were quoted at 21/20 to win, and 13/5 to draw. I fully expect us to win, despite our difficulty in scoring goals, added to the relative ease at which we manage to concede them so far this season.
I also expect Stoke to concede a penalty for blatant holding from a corner. I know that referees appear to have relaxed their early season edict to award penalties in these circumstances, but it is about time we were given a penalty. I therefore expect (well hope anyway) that Mark Noble will score the first goal of the game.

My stake will be:

20 points on a win @21/20 (41)
10 points on a draw @13/5 (36)
1 point Mark Noble to score the first goal @12/1 (13)
1 point on Noble 1st goal and we win 1-0 @60/1 (61)
1 point on Noble 1st goal and we win 2-1 @60/1 (61)
1 point on a 1-0 West Ham victory @15/2 (8.5)
1 point on a 2-1 West Ham victory @15/2 (8.5)

Total stake 35 points, reducing our balance to 65.

If we win or draw the game then we’ll be up on the day. A draw will return 36 points, and a win would be 41. If we win 1-0 or 2-1 then our return will be 49.5. But if Noble scores the first goal, and the game ends 1-0 or 2-1 to us, then our return will be 123.5 points. What are the chances?

If the unthinkable happens and we lose the game, then I’ll be more upset about the loss of a potential three points, than losing our stake of 35 points.

The Lawro Challenge – Week 11

Our mission to out-predict the BBC pundit predictor.

Lawro Crystal Ball Ten rounds of games in the Premier League have now been completed. That means we have now predicted the results of 100 matches. Just over a quarter of the season has elapsed, and Lawro has narrowed the gap at the top of the prediction league. Rich and Lawro are currently in the Man City and Arsenal positions, whereas Geoff is imitating Sunderland.

However a lot can happen in the next 280 games, just as it can to the teams in the Premier League, and Geoff has more chance of winning this challenge than Sunderland do of winning the league. But he will need to start making inroads into the points gap before falling too far behind.

In Week 10, Rich scored 5 points, Geoff 4 points, and Lawro had the best total again with 9 points. In this challenge we award one point for a correct result, and a further two points (making three in total) if the score prediction is spot on.

	Rich	Geoff	Lawro
Total after 9 weeks	75	54	67
Score in week 10	5	4	9
Total after 10 weeks	80	58	76

Predictions – Week 11
	Rich	Geoff	Lawro
SATURDAY
Bournemouth v Sunderland	2-1	3-1	2-0
Burnley v Palace	1-1	1-2	1-1
Man City v Middlesbrough	3-0	4-0	3-0
West Ham v Stoke	2-1	3-1	1-1
Chelsea v Everton	2-1	2-0	2-1
SUNDAY
Arsenal v Tottenham	1-1	2-2	2-0
Hull v Southampton	0-1	0-2	1-1
Liverpool v Watford	4-1	3-1	3-0
Swansea v Man United	1-1	0-0	0-2
Leicester v WBA	2-0	1-0	2-1

The Fixtures Computer

Can we blame the fixtures computer for the fact that we sit seventeenth in the Premier League table after a quarter of the season?

Season Fixtures

In modern times in the Premier League era, fixtures divide very neatly into two halves of the season. What I mean by this is that we play games against each of the other nineteen teams in the league in the first half of the season, which concludes very neatly on 31 December, and then play them all again between January and May. As there are twenty teams, we play nineteen matches in each half.

From August to December our nineteen games comprise nine at home and ten away. The situation is reversed in the second half with ten at home and nine away. All very logical you might think, but this has not always been the case.

My support of West Ham goes back almost sixty years, and in the first season that I remember (1958-59), our second league game of the season on 25 August was at home to the previous season’s champions, Wolves. Then our fourth game was a visit to Wolves on September 3. So, just four games into the season and we had played our quota of games against the best side in the country. Incidentally we won at home and drew away. In 1964-65 a similar situation arose when we played Manchester United at home and away on August 24 and September 2.

So, in those days there was no real balance to the season, and the league table could therefore be potentially misleading if you fulfilled all your fixtures against the top clubs early on. I’m not sure when exactly this was rectified, but the current situation of playing all nineteen teams once, before playing them all again would seem to be fairer.

If we look at this season in detail then our nine home games in 2016 are against Bournemouth (16), Watford (13), Southampton (6), Middlesbrough (P), Sunderland (17), Stoke (9), Arsenal (2), Burnley (P) and Hull (P). The figures in brackets denote last season’s league position, plus “P” for the promoted clubs. That is just three teams who finished in the top half, three in the bottom half, and all three promoted teams. On paper you would have to conclude that our home games in the first half of the season should yield a substantial points total.

Conversely the ten away games in 2016 are against Chelsea (10), Man City (4), WBA (14), Palace (15), Everton (11), Tottenham (3), Man United (5), Liverpool (8), Swansea (12), and Leicester (1). Eight of the ten games are against teams that finished in the top twelve in the league. On paper, the conclusion we can draw from this, is that it is a very tough set of away fixtures in the first half of the season.

Of course, the situation is reversed in 2017, so that in the second half of the season we have easier away games and tougher home fixtures (on paper). I’m not sure how randomly the fixtures computer allocates fixtures, but there is certainly an imbalance in the apparent strength of our opponents in our home and away fixtures in the two halves of the season. For that reason perhaps we should not take too much notice of the league table until we are a long way into the season.

Surely it wouldn’t take too much computer programming skill to ensure a much more balanced fixture list. The fixtures computer should come up with an end result such that in each half of the season we play roughly half of our home games against teams that finished in the top half in the previous season, and half against teams from the bottom half. The same should be true of the spread of away fixtures.

This would be fairer to all teams, both top and bottom, and would ensure that the league table is more representative of the strength of clubs throughout the season, and give an indication of finishing positions much sooner. As it stands, teams with tough early fixtures could find themselves in a relegation dogfight early on in the season, which then inhibits the way that they play for the remainder.

So does this explain why we sit in seventeenth place after ten games of the season? No. It may be a partial factor, but we are there because of poor defending, plus the fact that we are as weak as I can remember at scoring goals. We have only found the net ten times in ten games, and conceded nineteen at the other end. Only Sunderland and Hull have conceded more goals than we have, and have poorer goal difference statistics.

Over a whole season an average of one goal a game would give us just 38 goals. In the last twenty-five years we’ve only managed such a poor scoring record twice. In one of those seasons we were relegated, and in the other we escaped relegation on the last day of the season. And conceding 19 goals in ten games or 1.9 goals a game would equate to 72 in 38 games. When did we last concede that many goals or more in a season? Fifty years ago in 1966-67. But in that year we scored eighty!

West Ham Heroes – Number 4 – Billy Bonds

Six foot two, Eyes are blue, Billy Bonds is after you!

Billy Bonds

Throughout most of the 1950’s and the early 1960’s the number 2 shirt at West Ham was owned by John Bond. He was the right back in our FA Cup winning side in 1964 and was really the only number 2 I ever remember in my early years of watching West Ham. He played his last game for us in 1965, and was followed towards the end of the European Cup Winners Cup winning season by Joe Kirkup and Dennis Burnett. But we really needed to strengthen the team in this position so Ron Greenwood signed William Arthur Bonds, known to us all as Billy, in 1967.

Those of us who were there on 19 August 1967 for the opening game of the season against Sheffield Wednesday witnessed the debut of the player who went on to play more games for the club than any other, 799, in a long career that spanned 21 seasons. He started at right back and without a doubt he was the best player I have ever seen in that position at West Ham.

Around three years later he was switched to play in midfield and formed an amazing partnership alongside Trevor Brooking. Throughout the first half of the 1970’s he continued in this role and once again, I have to say he was the best player I have ever seen at the club in the “box-to-box” midfield role.

He became captain when Bobby Moore left in 1974, and for the final ten years at West Ham he played at the back, initially alongside Tommy Taylor, and then formed an excellent partnership with the young Alvin Martin. He was one of the best centre backs I’ve ever seen at West Ham too, and in all three roles at the club he excelled.

He would be one of the first names in my all-time West Ham heroes team, and could fill any of the three positions, but perhaps he was at his playing peak in the early 1970’s when he single-handedly won so many games for the club from midfield.

To be honest I cannot recall a single game where I left the ground thinking that he hadn’t played well. He was fully committed throughout every game, and perhaps his skill was overshadowed by his commitment to win the ball when our opponents had it, but you shouldn’t be fooled, he was great with the ball too.

If I had to pick out one game that I remember above all others it was the day in March 1974 when we beat Chelsea 3-0 and Bill scored a hat-trick. He finished that season as leading scorer, which was most unusual from a midfield role, particularly in those times. Around the time of the Chelsea game I remember seeing him score a magnificent left-footed volley from outside the penalty area in a game against Coventry at Upton Park. I was standing on the North Bank directly in line with the shot.

He was always considered to be the fittest player at the club, and was almost 42 when he retired at the end of the 1987-88 season. I’ve watched the England team since the late 1950’s and when I think of some of the players who have pulled on the three lions shirt, then I am amazed that Bill never did. Without a shadow of a doubt he was the best English footballer I have ever seen (by a country mile) who never represented the full national team. He came very close a couple of times, but injury denied him in the end.

After being a youth team coach at the club, he became manager following the resignation of Lou Macari in 1990, and in his first full season at the helm led us to promotion. In the following ill-fated “Bond scheme” season that followed we were relegated, but the following year he led us back up into the top flight. He resigned in August 1994 when Harry Redknapp took over, and the two of them, who were very close friends, have never spoken since. The circumstances regarding the resignation have differing versions according to what you read.

Many consider that he was the best West Ham manager ever. Certainly those who trust statistics do. His win percentage of 44% is the highest of all full time West Ham bosses in history, his losing percentage of 30% is the lowest of all full time West Ham bosses in history, and the goals scored minus the goals conceded per game at 0.32 is also the best of all full time West Ham bosses in history.

He was Hammer of the Year four times, was awarded the MBE, won the PFA Merit award when he retired, and was the initial recipient of the West Ham lifetime achievement award in 2013. Quite simply he was an absolute West Ham legend. I’d personally like to see greater recognition for him at our new stadium.

Everton 2:0 West Ham

Twenty questions following West Ham’s disappointing defeat to Everton at Goodison Park.

Why do Sky Sports, in their coverage of Premier League games, only believe that one team is playing in the match? The pre-match time was devoted almost exclusively to talking about Everton. An interview with Gareth Barry, analysis of Ross Barkley, talk of Lukaku’s goalscoring, and an interview with the Everton manager, Koeman filled all the lead up to the game. West Ham were playing too! Why were we completely ignored?
Why are we unable to convert superiority into goals? For the first half of the first half we totally controlled the game, but somehow you knew that the failure to score in this period would come back to bite us.
Do the West Ham players practice shooting? And if they do, why are they unable to make a better fist of it when playing the game? Obiang, Lanzini, Payet, Antonio and Ayew all found themselves with excellent opportunities to score, but failed to hit the target, or produced shots that never even remotely tested the Everton keeper. I’ve seen better finishing in Sunday morning football.
Why does Ogbonna continue to demonstrate the Italian defender skills of holding opponents when they have corner kicks? If the incompetent officials acted on their early season promise to crack down on this, then he would have given away several penalties by now. His grappling of opponents’ shirts is so blatant I cannot understand why the officials fail to see it. He’s got away with it so far, but ….
And on the subject of officials, especially referees, why are they so incompetent? There were shocking examples of the referee and his assistants failing to see obvious things. A blatant corner that we should have been awarded, the wall for Payet’s first free kick counted out by the referee at just about six or seven paces from the ball, and Lukaku being offside in the build up to Everton’s second goal (you could see he was offside purely by looking at the way the grass was cut across the pitch – and it was later confirmed when replayed), were just three of many examples. And to show that this report is not completely biased, how could the referee not give Everton a penalty in the 93^rd minute? The foul by Ogbonna was so such a stone-wall penalty I just cannot see how the referee failed to award a spot kick. Why do the authorities not see the need for video replays?
Why did we fade so badly in the second half of the game? We created at least half a dozen good chances in the first half, with Payet and Lanzini prominent in the moves, but those two players, and the team as a whole, were just a shadow of themselves in the second period.
Why do players get booked for fairly innocuous hand ball when so many bad tackles and flailing arms go unpunished? Reid’s completely unnecessary handball means that he misses our next game at home to Stoke.
Will Bilic finally give Oxford the opportunity to demonstrate his obvious potential as a replacement for Reid in the Stoke game? I doubt it, as almost certainly Collins will come into the team.
Why does Adrian when making saves not push the ball away for a corner but keep it in play? This was a bad error which contributed hugely to Lukaku’s goal. He did the same against Crystal Palace last season.
Why was Reid’s clearance so poor just before the first Everton goal? And why was he so slow to react when Adrian parried the ball?
Why do we always have to let Lukaku score his customary goal against us?
Why was the impressive Fernandes taken off to be replaced by the totally ineffectual Zaza?
Why was Zaza brought to the club?
Why does Payet have to take every free kick in shooting range? There was a free kick awarded in a position ideal for a left footer, and it may be appropriate to let Cresswell have a go sometimes. I realise that Payet has been very successful when taking free kicks, but why every single one?
Why did we give the ball away so cheaply on so many occasions? Noble and Payet were particularly guilty in this respect, setting up dangerous Everton counter attacks.
Why does Kouyate only appear to be a shadow of the player we have seen previously?
Why have we now failed to keep a clean sheet against Everton in 17 consecutive Premier League games?
Why have we allowed Everton to have a better record against us than against any other teams they have ever played in the Premier League?
Why have we already lost four away league games this season, before the end of October? We only lost five in the whole of last season.
Will we ever learn? On the evidence of today, it doesn’t appear so!

Everton Preview

Can We Halt Lukaku’s Amazing Goalscoring Run Against Us?

Everton Programme We go into this game on the back of three consecutive victories, and if we manage at least a point then we will have remained unbeaten in five games, which cover the whole of the month of October. After a disastrous beginning to the season then this is exactly what we needed. With a home game next week against Stoke City, we have the opportunity to put ourselves in a reasonable position in the league before the next international break. When we entered the last break, after seven league games, we had amassed just four points including only one victory.

We needed that break to re-charge, re-think, and work out how we could improve our performances to ensure that we did not become involved in the relegation dogfight. Of course we are not yet in a comfortable league position, and need to consolidate the recent improvement before the run of difficult games that will follow immediately after the next fortnight recess from league football. The four games that come after the interval include visits to Tottenham, Manchester United and Liverpool with just one solitary home game against Arsenal.

It is therefore vital to get something from the next two games, and then hope to spring a surprise or two in the tough fixtures. We then have relatively easier games at home to Burnley and Hull, and away at Swansea and Leicester. At that point we will have reached the end of 2016, and be exactly half way through the season.

At the equivalent stage last season we had 29 points. To reach a similar total in this campaign would require 19 points in the next ten games, of which just four are at home and six away, including the Everton game. That could be achieved with six wins, a draw, and three defeats, or alternatively five wins, four draws and just one reverse. Despite our recent improvement this scenario seems very unlikely, and if we can get anywhere close to our halfway points total last term then we will have done well.

Of course we improved still further in the second half of last season, with 33 points in the final 19 games to finish on 62 in seventh place. We will be looking for a similar upturn this time around.

Everton, on the other hand, come into this fixture on a run of five games without a win. Their early season sparkling form seems to have disappeared, although they still sit in sixth place in the table. Their new manager, Ronald Koeman appears to have halted their relatively poor defensive record under Martinez, especially at home, and the eight goals that they have conceded to date in all league games is the second best record in the division so far. Last season they conceded 30 goals in their 19 home games, a total only exceeded by Aston Villa and Bournemouth. This, of course, includes the three late goals that we put into their net in a dramatic comeback in March.

Their top scorer this term with six goals is, unsurprisingly, Lukaku, and he has netted eight times in eight games against us. He always seems to score against us and is a good bet to be the first goalscorer in the game. In fact he is odds-on with bookmakers to score against us at any time in the game, and given his previous record we cannot be surprised by that. We also need to beware of Cleverley, who, despite being a midfielder who does not have a particularly great goalscoring record (around 25 goals in approaching 200 senior games in his career), has scored against us for three different teams (for Wigan, Villa, and Manchester United).

If we can keep Lukaku quiet, and at the same time play with the same level of intensity and desire that we showed against Chelsea, then I am hopeful that we will get something from the game. A win would be great, but my prediction is for Lukaku to open the scoring, and then for Antonio to end his recent goalscoring drought, and the game to finish 1-1. Antonio hasn’t scored since netting five times in our opening four league games, which is surprising considering our improved performances of late. But that’s the way it goes sometimes, and I’m sure his goalless run will end soon.

I hope that Bilic retains the same team that played in midweek, and I also hope that my forecast for the result will be wrong, and that perhaps Ayew will come off the bench to score a late winner in a 2-1 victory. Perhaps the Everton players will get nervous thinking about last season, and remember our storming finish to win the game.

What are the chances?

I Wouldn’t Bet On It 15

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Fancy A Bet

Last week we had some fun bets on West Ham v Sunderland. They all lost apart from the key one, where Winston Reid’s late strike saved our bacon, and gave us a healthy 38 points return bringing our balance up to 108.1.

The bet was 22 points on West Ham to beat Sunderland @8/11 (38).

This week we’ll have a look at our game at Everton. The best odds I found were on Betfair where we were quoted at 3.8/1 to win, and 2.95/1 to draw. Bearing in mind that in the 134 times we have played Everton, they have won 67, and the other 67 have been won by us or drawn, then statistically you might expect that we have a 50/50 chance of at least getting a draw out of the game.

Of course the fact that the game is at Goodison Park would change that, but then again they may have nightmares about last season. They were beating us 2-0 when they were awarded a penalty. Lukaku missed and we went on to gain a very unlikely 3-2 victory. You could have named your own odds on a West Ham win when Lukaku was stepping up to take the spot kick.

Worryingly, Everton haven’t beaten a London team in their last ten attempts – statistics like those can be broken at any time, and West Ham have often been the fall guys when a bad run such as that is broken.

I really fancy the draw, so we’ll stake:

3 points on a draw @2.95/1 (9.85)
2 points on a win @3.8/1 (8.6)
1 point on a 1-1 draw @13/2 (7.5)
1 point on Lukaku 1^st goal and a 1-1 draw @22/1 (23)
1.1 points on a draw double in our game and Southampton v Chelsea @13.4/1 (14.4)

Total stake 8.1 points, reducing our balance to 100 (which is where we started!)

If we win or draw the game then we’ll be up on the day. But if Lukaku scores the first goal, the game ends 1-1, and the Southampton v Chelsea game is drawn, then our return will be 54.75 points.

What are the chances?