Under The Hammers

I Wouldn’t Bet On It 20

The odds of being struck by lightning twice in your lifetime are 1 in 9 million. It’s still worth a try…….

Fancy A Bet Last week we lost six points in the forlorn hope that we would get at least a draw against Arsenal. We now have 95 points. Despite Liverpool’s second half capitulation at Bournemouth last Sunday, they are still massively odds-on to beat an out of form, and lacking in confidence West Ham team. But then again, they were big odds-on favourites to beat us when we went to Anfield at the end of August 2015.

You will recall what happened then. In the two previous weeks we had lost at home to Leicester and Bournemouth, and prior to the game we hadn’t won at Anfield since September 1963. Gerry and the Pacemakers hadn’t even released You’ll Never Walk Alone when we won that 1963 game 2-1.

But last season, against the odds, we won 3-0 there, and then we beat them 2-0 at Upton Park in the first game of 2016. If I recall correctly they were the only team that we took six points off. We also knocked them out of the FA Cup after a replay. So you would think that we wouldn’t be such enormous underdogs in this Sunday’s game. But of course, anyone who has seen us this season will know why.

However, in a continuation of previous week’s optimism, my main bet this week will be to stake 10 points on West Ham to win or draw the game @5/2 (35). Then a small outlay on the following fun bets:

1 point on West Ham to repeat last season’s 3-0 win @250-1 (251)
1 point on a 2-2 draw @16/1 (17)
1 point on a West Ham win with Lanzini to score anytime @30/1 (31)
1 point on a West Ham win with Obiang to score anytime @90/1 (91)
1 point on West Ham to win the game @9/1 (10)

Our balance is now down to 80 points following this 15 point outlay.

If we win or draw the game we are in profit. In the extremely unlikely event of us winning the game 3-0, including goals from both Lanzini and Obiang, then our return would be 418 points!

What are the chances?

Matchday: Hammers @ Anfield

Try as I might I can only see an oncoming train wreck emerging from the Anfield tunnel.

Liverpool West Ham I am of the firm opinion that if Slaven Bilic cannot secure at least 8 points from the next 5 games he should start to pack his bags since sticking with him would represent a massive gamble. After yesterday’s results West Ham have slipped back into the bottom 3 and a heavy defeat today could see the situation deteriorate further. Of the next 5 games today’s fixture is undoubtedly the toughest on paper with a point likely to be the optimistic target. Unfortunately Liverpool’s weakness at the defensive end of the pitch is not something we are equipped to exploit with the firepower available. Are we able to score as many as we concede as I see little prospect of keeping a clean sheet today.

“I feel the support and have said that so many times and I felt that support in our conversation this week. I believe in myself and my staff and look at what we achieved last year and I believe there is time to turn it around.”

– Slaven Bilic

It is standard practice for many West Ham fans to despise anything Scouse related and certainly the media love-in with Liverpool, despite their having won the last of their league titles some 26 seasons ago, can be immensely irritating. However, I do believe that Jurgen Klopp, for all his idiosyncrasies, has done an impressive job since arriving at Anfield in October last year. He looks to be on the way to the holy grail of football management of getting a team to perform in a manner that is greater than the sum of its parts. His side is a team largely devoid of individual stars that plays to a well-defined system that is both effective and allows them to compensate for absent players much easier. It is an interesting contrast to our own disjointed and disorganised efforts so far this season.

Head to Head

West Ham’s abysmal record at Anfield is there for all to see. Last season’s first win in 50 odd years brought the total of away victories to an unimpressive 3 in a series where we have only scored 36 goals in 60 matches. In a historic sense we will over achieve if we manage to score today.

	P	W	D	L	F	A	Sequence
Home	60	22	17	21	83	83	WWWLLW
Away	60	3	19	38	36	113	DWLLDL
	120	25	36	59	119	196

Team News

It appears that both Antonio and Cresswell have recovered from the injuries incurred in the EFL Cup game at Old Trafford and are available to start. As far as I know Kouyate remains injured and Collins is also out. I am hoping this means an enforced change to the 3 at the back experiment. It must be a toss-up who plays in goal (Adrian or Randolph) and who will be the main striker (Carroll or Fletcher). There must be a tendency to take a risk averse, danger limitation approach (at least as far as player fitness is concerned) to this match with home games coming up against Burnley and Hull in the next week. It will be nice if the players have re-discovered that intensity that they lost in training and can at least put in a shift this week.

“If there’s any reaction from the team, I don’t know, maybe we will be angry against West Ham.”

– Jurgen Klopp

My anticipated line-up for a side that will be primarily concerned with protecting the point is:

Randolph
Arbeloa Reid Ogbonna Cresswell
Noble Obiang
Antonio Lanzini Payet
Carroll

Liverpool are without Coutinho and Sturridge but unfortunately Mane is fit enough to return to the side that will be smarting from defeat at Bournemouth last week. If I felt optimistic I might think that throwing away a two goal lead last week could have dented their confidence but the greater likelihood is that they will be raring to put it all behind them.

Man in The Middle

It is self-important celebrity referee Mark Clattenburg of County Durham in the middle today. Clattenburg’s only West Ham fixture so far this season was the away defeat at West Bromwich. He has taken charge of 15 games in all competitions this season totaling 59 Yellow and 2 Red cards.

Liverpool Preview

Has the Anfield hoodoo ended or will normal service be resumed this Sunday?

Embed from Getty Images

What is there to worry about? We faced Liverpool four times last season. We won both league games, drew 0-0 there in the fourth round of the FA Cup, and beat them after extra time in the replay at Upton Park. That is 390 minutes of football, plus injury time, and we scored seven goals to their one. And we finished above them in the league. So why do the bookies make them 3/10 favourites, and offer odds of 9/1 on us winning the game? Are they a better team than they were when we last met? Probably, yes. Have our performances this season declined compared to last? Definitely, yes.

The first win in August 2015 was the one that took everyone by surprise. Although we had already beaten Arsenal at the Emirates on the opening day of the season, we lost the next two games at home to Leicester and Bournemouth. Nobody thought we had any realistic chance of victory at Anfield, where we hadn’t won since 1963. But an early goal from Lanzini was followed by a Mark Noble strike on the half hour, and then Sakho wrapped up a comprehensive 3-0 victory in injury time. By the time we met them on 2 January, our impressive season was well underway. We had only lost twice since our early season win at Anfield, and sat in seventh place. Goals from Antonio and Carroll secured a 2-0 win and the double over them. At the end of January we met them in the fourth round of the FA Cup, and a goalless draw at Anfield was followed by a 2-1 victory in the replay with goals from Antonio, and a 121st minute header from Ogbonna.

But this season it has all gone wrong, and we go into this game already embroiled in a relegation dogfight. Nobody realistically expects us to get anything this time, possibly giving us even less chance than last season’s surprise. But Bournemouth showed us last Sunday that the Liverpool defence can be got at, and their keeper looked very vulnerable. I wonder if our training has been more intense following the revelation after the Arsenal game that it hasn’t been what it should have? I read that Bilic has taken specific hands-on coaching of our defence, and not before time. I also read that Dicks has not been involved in coaching the defence, and that the offer from Rio Ferdinand to get involved has been declined. We’ll see on Sunday if there has been any improvement.

I also read rumours that Reece Burke is being recalled from his loan to add to our defensive squad, in particular the problematic right back position, and I welcome that if it is true. Every time he has played at either centre back or right back he has looked a good prospect to me, and definitely a player we should be looking to include. Also, Sam Byram is nearing a return, and hopefully our other injured players will be back soon. And I’d also like to see Reece Oxford given a runout. I’m sure he will turn out to be some player, but we’ll never know if he doesn’t get a chance. Perhaps they are waiting for him to sign a new contract.

Of course, the defence has not been our only problem, and we need to create opportunities and score more goals, by increasing the tempo of our attacking play. I hope that they have worked on this at Rush Green too. Naturally the media has been full of our woes, and rumours abound as to who we are looking to bring into the club in the January transfer window. The latest ones are Defoe, who would be superb alongside an in-form and injury-free Carroll, but would not be popular with some sections of our fans, who are unable to forgive him for the past. He was a young guy who made a mistake, but it was a long time ago. I’ve also read about the interest in Fellaini and I just hope that that this one is way off the mark. Of course you can find links on the internet to hundreds of players that we are supposedly interested in signing. Fortunately, most of them are just rumours with no foundation whatsoever.

Once again, with no real reason to do so, I’ll put my optimistic hat on and say we’ll get a 2-2 draw on Sunday. What are the chances?

The Lawro Challenge – Week 15

We continue to give Lawro a run for his money in the Prediction Stakes.

Lawro Crystal Ball During the US Election the majority of the press were firmly rooting for and forecasting a runaway Hilary Clinton victory. When the results finally revealed a Trump victory the same media had to report on them and they did so through gritted teeth while pointing an accusing finger at anyone they could instead of accepting that they got it wrong.

I fee much the same as the onus falls to me to provide an update on the status of the Lawro Challenge. Here then is this weeks official release and below that this week’s predictions. The run of bad luck and freak results cannot continue and I can only see a steady closing of the gap.

Fourteen rounds of games in the Premier League have now been completed. That means we have now predicted the results of 140 matches. In Week 14, Rich scored 12 points, Geoff 4 points, and Lawro 11 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 13 weeks	110	73	99
Score in week 14	12	4	11
Total after 14 weeks	122	77	110

Predictions – Week 15
	Rich	Geoff	Lawro
SATURDAY
Watford v Everton	1-1	2-1	0-2
Arsenal v Stoke	2-0	3-0	2-0
Burnley v Bournemouth	1-1	1-2	2-0
Hull v Palace	1-1	0-0	0-2
Swansea v Sunderland	2-1	0-1	1-1
Leicester v Man City	1-2	1-3	2-1
SUNDAY
Chelsea v WBA	3-1	3-0	2-0
Man Utd v Tottenham	1-1	0-1	1-1
Southampton v Middlesbrough	2-1	1-1	1-1
Liverpool v West Ham	2-2	3-1	2-0

Stadium tales & things I’ve heard in the crowd and on the way to games lately

London Stadium

In my book, Goodbye Upton Park, Hello Stratford, I referred to a character who used to sit somewhere behind me in the Betway stand at Upton Park, who used to shout the words “back door, back door” continuously throughout the game, when our opponents were attacking our goal. If they had a corner, or a free kick, or indeed were attacking down either flank he would shout those words. It got a bit boring after a while and many of us were pleased when he no longer turned up for games. I’d like to think that someone showed him the back door!

Now there is a guy who sits somewhere behind me who I think of as Mr. Know-It-All. Throughout the game he passes comment the whole time with one or two expletives in every sentence. He really believes he is an expert on the game, and likes to tell everyone in earshot. Every player on the pitch, either our team or the opposition is referred to at the end of every single phrase he utters as a c***, or a f****** c***. Most of us are really cheesed off with him as he thinks he knows everything, but there is an old couple who seem to hang on his every word and seem to find him funny. During the Arsenal game he spent most of the time he was there berating Antonio. He didn’t actually know the difference between Fernandes who was playing and Antonio who was not. Fortunately he disappears to the bar about fifteen minutes before half time, and leaves a similar time before the end of each game. The grandfather who sits next to me with his six year old grandson has complained to stewards but they don’t seem to want to act. He really is a pain and keeps saying he is never coming again. But unfortunately he does.

Also near me is a chap who follows the team to every game, home and away, including abroad when we are in Europe. He gives a running commentary to his two sons, explaining the finer points of the game throughout. He actually is quite knowledgeable, but it gets a bit wearing.

A few rows in front of me there is a chap who is a dead ringer for the singer Will Young. He comes to the game with his wife, or girlfriend, or whatever she is, but doesn’t take any interest in the match whatsoever. They are too busy cosying up to each other and should really go somewhere else and get a room.

Fortunately, most of the people in my vicinity in the ground are a good bunch. But I guess you see all sorts in a crowd.

I’ve also heard some interesting things on the radio on the way to games. Phil Neville, who has obviously been watching a lot of tennis lately used the following words in a commentary: “he forced the City player into an unforced error.”

Chris Waddle referring to the game at the top of the table last weekend used the words “Manchester City could easily have been 3-1 up before Chelsea scored”.

And another radio pundit, referring to our own Simone Zaza, used the words “He’s still looking to find his feet”. Now I know the reason for his poor performances. Perhaps if he finds them he will be a better player.

Happy Birthday Geoff Hurst (75) and David Cross (66)

Many happy returns to two former West Ham goal scoring heroes.

Hurst & Cross

Geoff Hurst, 75 today, scored 249 goals in 502 appearances and was part of the victorious 1964 FA Cup and 1965 ECWC sides. He remains the only player to score a World Cup final hat-trick.

David Cross, 66 today, scored 97 goals in 2003 and was an important member of the 1980 FA Cup winning side.

Who is to blame for our poor start to the season?

Who is in the firing line as disappointed fans look for someone to blame for the current shortcomings.

Board, manager, players The move to a new stadium often results in some people being unhappy. Most clubs when they move take a little while to settle. It’s the same as moving house. It takes a while to get used to your new surroundings. A trawl through social media reveals how when results are going against us, or when we are not playing well (to put it mildly), then individuals want to blame someone, or a group of people, or an inanimate object as to the reason for it. Sometimes it’s the players, or the manager, or the board, or the stadium. Sometimes it is all of them added together.

I can understand the disenchantment with players, especially when sometimes they don’t appear to be giving their all. I can understand that the buck stops with the manager when he is responsible for picking the team, devising tactics etc. If he is unhappy with the effort being put in by players at training, then it is his responsibility to do something about it. When things are not going well then the board will inevitably come in for criticism from some fans too. Certainly the summer transfer dealings which resulted in some very average recruitment, the proposed payments to Tevez, and anticipation of a “marquee” signing, would have been better kept in-house rather than discussed with media outlets. But the vitriolic personal attacks by some on social media are totally unnecessary, although I guess are just a consequence of the computer age, and happen in other spheres of life, too.

The one that really gets me is the criticism of the stadium. It’s just a football pitch surrounded by stands. I understand all the talk about it not being a football stadium, further from the pitch etc., so how comes we turned in the performance we did against Chelsea in the League Cup? Did we play it somewhere else when I wasn’t looking? The atmosphere at that game was at least equal to anything ever produced at Upton Park. The decibel levels when Antonio nodded in the late winner against Bournemouth, or when Payet scored his wonder individual goal to equalise against Middlesbrough went off the scale. And if you study the statistics, Upton Park was rarely a “fortress”.

I’m not one of the new breed of plastic supporters that I see written about. I spent 58 years going to Upton Park. I loved it in the old days when we stood on the terraces and were close to the pitch. Yes, sometimes a crowd of 20,000 would generate a fantastic atmosphere, but only at times when we were lifted by the players on the pitch. When we weren’t playing well you could almost hear a pin drop at times. And with the redevelopment of Upton Park into an all-seater stadium following the Taylor report, we weren’t that close to the pitch either. I am more than happy with the new stadium, as are most of the people I’ve discussed it with who sit nearby. But everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I always respect other opinions.

But I personally don’t understand why fans keep going on about it. There is no going back I’m afraid. There is no point in posting pictures of the Boleyn Ground in various states of demolition. I’ve even read pleas to wealthy West Ham fans to come forward, and put together a new team, a bit like what has happened in Manchester, and even try to buy the Boleyn Ground from the developers and build a brand new purpose built football stadium there. Quite a project to undertake.

Perhaps the reason for our poor start is a mixture of players, injuries, the manager and coaching staff, the training facilities, the board, and the stadium. I believe that with a good run of results, much of the negativity will disappear. Everyone has to pull together to turn things around. But if we are still hovering around the relegation zone at the turn of the year, then I am afraid that the current discontent will continue. Let’s hope that everyone involved does their bit to ensure a big improvement in the remainder of the season.

Transfer Rumours: No Fellaini Please

Maybe it’s only a rumour but bringing in Fellaini would be a massive backward step.

Transfer Window At the risk of falling into that internet trap where a transfer rumour has been made up only to spawns a torrent of outraged responses I would just like to say how disappointed it would be if West Ham really were interested in bringing Marouane Fellaini to the east London.

As in any transfer window there will be a glut rumours linking the Hammers with all sorts of players and only a few of them will have legs (the rumours that is not the players – although given recent dealings it may not be that obvious).

Noises coming out of the boardroom on Twitter are suggesting that we are mainly in the market for loan players and given the rather precarious position towards the bottom of the table it will give free rein to speculation on all manner of cast-offs from other teams. Experience unfortunately suggests that seeking reinforcements for a struggling team in the January window is rarely productive and often leads to panic signings. Fellaini is very much on the fringe at Old Trafford and after his cameo contribution at he weekend is likely to be even further away from any serious action. What to do with such an expensive flop? Why, send him to West Ham.

I would like to think that the club would have a good chuckle about the speculations and that would be the end of it. That Fellaini would be seen as the type of player that Fat Sam may have coveted but is one that is at odds with the modern style of Premier League football where pace, mobility, agility and finesse are the defining qualities.

When Slaven Bilic came into the club I thought, at last, we were getting a progressive manager. One who was in tune with current methods of fitness, organisation, tactics and formation; and for much of last season that is how it looked. Now I am not so sure and bringing in a player like Fellaini would be a further worying sign (after the summer transfer debacle) that Bilic is not really offering anything new.

There may be an argument that we need grit as well as skill to get out of the hole we have made for ourselves but that needn’t mean that all footballing principles should be abandoned.

The Vote of Confidence and the Midway Point

As we approach the midway point of the season is the manager on borrowed time?

League Table According to newspaper reports Slaven Bilic has received the dreaded vote of confidence from joint-chairman David Sullivan who cited last season’s achievements and the Croat’s passion as reasons why his position as manage is not currently under threat. Sullivan also claimed that there was a great spirit among the playing staff.

Last night’s result at Middlesbro ensured that West Ham kept out of the bottom three for the time being but there is no doubt that the club are part of the relegation battle. With a trip to Liverpool on the immediate horizon the chances of being below the line after the next round of matches are high. After that there will be a run of theoretically easier matches which will take us to the halfway point of the season. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the outcome of those matches may well lead to a reappraisal of Sullivan’s position on Bilic.

The table below shows West Ham’s record at the midway point in those more recent seasons where we have flirted with relegation.

Season	After 19 Games								Final Table
Season	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts	Pos	Pts
2002/03	19	3	5	11	18	35	-17	14	18th	42
2006/07	19	5	3	11	11	24	-13	18	15th	41
2009/10	19	4	6	9	28	35	-7	18	17th	35
2010/11	19	3	7	9	19	32	-13	16	20th	33
2013/14	19	3	6	10	18	28	-10	15	13th	40

2016/17	14	3	3	8	15	29	-14	12

In each of these seasons we had failed to average a point a game by midway and so were behind the curve for the supposed 40 point survival barrier. In every season apart from 2009/10 (Zola) the second half worked out better than the first but in two of those 2002/03 (Roeder) and 2010/11 (Grant) we ended up being relegated; in 2002/03 with a record 42 points for a relegated club.

in 2009/2010 West Ham only collected a paltry 35 points but were still 5 points clear of relegation and in 2013/14 (Fat Sam) a 40 point haul saw us end up as high as 13th while 41 points in the 2006/07 (Curbishley) great escape season left us in 15th courtesy of the unexpected win against the champions at Old Trafford.

After the Grant experience Sullivan was reported as saying that they had stuck with Avram for too long and that it wasn’t a mistake that they would repeat. Now he appears to be willing to give the manager another transfer window in order to turn things round; suggesting that there will be no decision before some time in February. I am not convinced that this makes sense and, if it were me, I would be setting a target of 20 points by the end of the year. Achieving this would require a return of 8 points from the following 5 games:

11 December     Liverpool (A)
15 December     Burnley (H)
17 December     Hull (H)
26 December     Swansea (A)
31 December     Leicester (A)

This should not be an unrealistic if we have an experienced manager who is able to get his team to perform. Our season must not simply depend on the hope that there are 3 worse performing teams in the league than us.

This Week in Hammer’s History

A glut of goals against and the start of an epic semi-final in the week 5 – 11 December in Hammer’s History.

This Week Hammers History Scanning through the list of results over the years for the week 5 – 11 December the one thing that stood out was the number of times that West Ham have conceded 4 goals; let’s hope it is not an omen for the week ahead.

There were 4-0 defeats to Manchester City (1969), Leeds United (1998), Everton (1991), Bolton (2006) and Manchester United (2009). The Hammers fared marginally better losing only 4-1 to Liverpool (2013), 4-2 to Burnley (1966) and 4-3 to Wrexham (1978). I couldn’t find a 4-4 game but there was a 5 all against Newcastle in 1960. So leaky defences and heavy defeats are nothing new and it seems that it was not unusual for the Hammers to go down even before the Christmas decorations went up (or Noddy Holder started wishing Everybody Happy Christmas through the public address in Tescos).

You may remember a few weeks ago we featured an impressive and memorable 7-0 League Cup thrashing of Don Revie’s Dirty Leeds side. The next round of that tournament took place in December 1966 with a visit to Bloomfield Road to take on Blackpool, also in the first division at the time. A midweek evening kick-off meant no night out on the Golden Mile the night before and ended with West Ham winning 3-1, with goals from Hurst (2) and Byrne, to set up a semi-final appearance against West Bromwich Albion.

Standen, Burnett, Charles, Bovington, Brown, Moore, Boyce, Hurst, Byrne, Peters, Sissons

Five years later West Ham had already reached the semi-final of the same competition and embarked on what would become an epic series of games against Stoke City. The first of the scheduled two legged tie saw the Hammers travel to the Victoria Ground for a very cold Wednesday evening kick-off.

I was in the 6th form at school in Barking at the time and all through December we would spend the evening carol singing in aid of Cancer Research (or the Imperial Cancer Fund (ICF?)as it was then known). I can remember ending the evening at someone’s house to watch the TV highlights and with no internet back then we were unaware of the score as we watched the game.

What we saw was Stoke race into an early lead through a Peter Dobing goal and for a period there was only one team in it and it wasn’t West Ham. However, around the half hour mark Trevor Brooking sent a cross high into the Stoke area which left Clyde Best flat on his face. Penalty said referee Morrisey and up stepped Geoff Hurst to blast past Gordon Banks in the Stoke goal. It got better for West Ham after 62 minutes when Best rifled in a stunning winner from a Harry Redknapp cross. It ended 2-1 to West Ham on the night and we went hoping confident that another Wembley trip was on the cards.

Ferguson, McDowell, Lampard, Bonds, Taylor, Moore, Redknapp, Best, Hurst, Brooking, Robson

Birthdays this week:

5 December Danny Williamson (43)
8 December David Cross (66)
8 December Geoff Hurst (75)
9 December Ludek Miklosko (55)