Tag: #claretandblue

Aston Villa visit the London Stadium to face West Ham in the Claret and Blue derby

Before last week’s article I developed a programme to anticipate where West Ham would finish in this season’s Premier League final table. This week I provide an update based upon what happened last weekend, including our unfortunate two points dropped in the 2-2 draw with Burnley at the London Stadium.

There are probably six teams still in the reckoning to finish sixth or seventh in the final table and all now have ten games remaining apart from Chelsea with eleven. I have discounted the top five in the Premier League as I believe they have enough points and decent enough run-ins to maintain those places. The teams from 6th to 11th are now:

  • 6. Manchester United – 47 points (28 games)
  • 7. West Ham – 43 points (28)
  • 8. Brighton – 42 points (28)
  • 9. Wolves – 41 points (28)
  • 10. Newcastle – 40 points (28)
  • 11. Chelsea – 39 points (27)

You may recall that I considered the degree of difficulty in the remaining fixtures for each side based upon the current position in the league table of their remaining opponents. The degree of difficulty factor suggested that Newcastle have the easiest run-in.

I then took it further and predicted the results of each teams remaining games with a formula based upon fixtures remaining, categorised into teams being faced with a current position of 1-3, 4-5, 6-11, 12-17, and 18-20 given different weightings, whether or not the remaining games were home or away, and the results when the sides met earlier in the season. Additional factors included games against the top 5 teams, and games against each other (i.e. the 6 teams being considered).

Some of the results last weekend were as expected, the only ones that were not were West Ham who were expected to beat Burnley, and Newcastle who were expected to draw at Chelsea based on the criteria used. This therefore adjusts the forecast for the final standings at the end of the season which is now:

  • 6. Manchester United – 61 points
  • 7. Newcastle – 56 points
  • 8. Chelsea – 56 points
  • 9. Wolves – 55 points
  • 10. West Ham – 55 points
  • 11. Brighton – 51 points

Chelsea have now risen to a predicted eighth placed finish whilst West Ham have fallen to tenth. As I wrote last time, it’s just a bit of fun, and my gut feeling is that perhaps tenth is just about right. Football matches are notoriously unpredictable to forecast which stems from various factors like team dynamics, player and overall team form, European and FA Cup games to play, the Thursday / Sunday mix which is often an issue, injuries, and even unpredictable events during a game, as well as all sorts of other miscellaneous factors.

I noted this week that the Opta Supercomputer forecast is that West Ham will finish eighth on 55.47 points. (I’m not sure where we’d get the 0.47 points from!). Their programming must have some similarities to mine based on their figures. I will look back at the end of the season to compare The Bennett model versus the Opta Supercomputer at this stage to make a comparison.

This is how Opta see the Premier League ending up…

  • 6. Manchester United – 62.41
  • 7. Newcastle United – 58.35
  • 8. West Ham United – 55.47
  • 9. Chelsea – 54.84
  • 10. Brighton & Hove Albion – 54.61

On Thursday night we gave Freiburg a bit of a thrashing which on the face of it would compare the relative merits of the Premier League versus the Bundesliga. Seventh in the Premier League were shown to be massively superior to eighth in the Bundesliga based upon this last 16 tie. This was also a significant victory for English clubs who are now on course to claim a fifth spot in next season’s Champions League.

Two additional performance places are up for grabs due to the new format in 2024-25. They will go to the countries with the best average performance in all the European competitions this season. Before Thursday night Italy were top with Germany second and England third, but our win meant that England narrowed the gap on Germany.

Coefficient Rankings:

  • 1. Italy – 17.714 (4 teams remaining)
  • 2. Germany – 16.357 (3 teams remaining)
  • 3. England – 16.250 (5 teams remaining)
  • 4. France – 14.750 (3 teams remaining)
  • 5. Spain – 14.437 (3 teams remaining

We’ve now drawn another German side in the quarter finals and this time it will be much tougher as we face the might of Bayer 04 Leverkusen, the runaway leaders in Germany who have won 21 and drawn 4 of their 25 games, being the only side in the top 5 leagues in Europe to still be unbeaten at this stage of the season.

Having said that they came mightily close to being eliminated from the competition on Thursday night when they trailed Karabakh (of Azerbaijan) 2-1 on the night and 4-3 on aggregate as the tie reached the 90th minute of the second leg. Leverkusen then scored twice in the time that was added to ensure progression. That game surely gives us some hope in the quarter final tie doesn’t it?

Also, if England get the second spot in the ‘performance table’ and the FA Cup winners finish in the top seven, then it would appear that England would have five places in next season’s Champions League, two places in the Europa League and the team finishing eighth would take the Europa Conference League spot. All the more reason to continue to push for a high enough spot in the Premier League, apart from the kudos and the prize money on offer of course.

And what about the Kudus goal where he ran from the middle of our half, dribbled through the Freiburg team on an incredible run then clinically finished with his so-called weaker foot? That got me thinking of the best goals I’ve seen us score at the London Stadium. In no particular order it joins Payet’s amazing dribble through the Middlesbrough defence, and Andy Carroll’s wonderful volley against Crystal Palace. There are others to consider I’m sure. What ones have I missed?

Great goals that they were, none of them compare in my eyes to Martin Peters’ goal against Leicester in November 1968, Trevor Sinclair’s goal against Derby on Boxing Day 2001, or Harry Redknapp’s goal v QPR, also in November 1968 (just two weeks before Martin Peters goal).

I’ve written before about the 1968/69 season and a golden period of four consecutive and absolutely brilliant entertaining games at Upton Park in the Autumn of 1968. When we faced Sunderland on October 19th we’d come off the back of a run of nine winless games. We ended that run thrashing Sunderland 8-0 (the game where Geoff Hurst scored six). A fortnight later in a great game we defeated QPR 4-3, which included the Redknapp goal I referred to above, and a magnificent Bobby Moore goal frequently shown on the screens at Upton Park before games. The game with the Martin Peters wonder goal came in a 4-0 win over Leicester two weeks after that. And finally move on another fortnight for a 2-1 win over Manchester City, the first scored by Geoff Hurst, a near post header from a Martin Peters cross, and the second a carbon copy but this time a near post header by Martin Peters from a Geoff Hurst cross. They could do it both ways around and in this match they did. Those were the days. Wonderful memories.

As the game today is against Aston Villa an abiding memory from fixtures against them is a penalty awarded to us in the last minute of the FA Cup quarter final in March 1980. Up stepped Ray Stewart, the perfect penalty taker when under the greatest pressure to score. He slammed it high into the net in front of the South Bank, we won the game 1-0 and went on to win the FA Cup, the last team to do so as a second-tier side. We’ve had some great penalty takers, in no particular order the best ones in my opinion were Ray Stewart, Julian Dicks, Geoff Hurst, Mark Noble, Johnny Byrne, John Bond, and Paolo Di Canio.

Aston Villa are one of those teams that we have beaten more often than been defeated by. The recent record is strongly in our favour. The last 11 meetings (since and including Boxing Day 2015) – West Ham have won six, four have been drawn, and Villa have only won once – that was this season when they won 4-1 last October. The overall record in history shows West Ham with 45 wins, Villa with 39, and 35 draws.

Two worrying statistics: We have won four and drawn four of our last eight home league games against Villa, and Villa have only ever beaten us once both home and away in a single season in the Premier League. How often do impressive runs like that come to an end?

Our record in Sunday games that follow Thursday evening games is not the best but at least this time Villa are in the same boat, as they had a Europa Conference League game on the same night that we put five past Freiburg when they beat Ajax 4-0 to win by that aggregate score and progress into their first European Quarter Final for 25 years. We will be hoping to improve on our record of dropping points in five of the seven Sunday games that have followed a Europa League game.

Villa’s impressive England striker Watkins is always a threat but he is battling to recover from a gashed knee to be fit for the game. Their captain John McGinn is banned following the reckless tackle last weekend that got him sent off against Tottenham. Emerson has been missing for a couple of games but he may be fit to resume at left back. Cornet is the only definite absentee – apparently he has a hamstring injury. Will we miss him? Is he still with us?

I wonder if Danny Ings will get a run out at some stage? If by chance he scores a goal he would become only the third player to score a Premier League goal against four of his former teams – Peter Crouch and Nicolas Anelka are the others. We will hope that Lucas Paqueta starts of course and has calmed down following his substitution in the week – all our 12 league wins this season have come with him in the starting eleven whereas we’ve failed to win any of the seven games where he hasn’t been involved.

Villa are impressive going forward with only Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal scoring more goals in the league so far this season. I cannot see them failing to score which will mean that we will need to be positive, and all four of Kudus, Paqueta, Bowen and a fit Antonio will need to be firing at the same level as they were on Thursday night. Can we win the game? I hope so but it won’t be easy. I’ll go for a 2-2 draw for the second weekend in a row.

Will Moyes Be Tasting Victory In The Kompany Of Clarets

Another Premier League reset after an international break. A routine West Ham victory or will they be hapless victims in the hosts quest to end their pointless home run?

The fixtures computer has celebrated the passing of the last international break of the year with a set of blockbuster matches for Saturday afternoon including Sheffield United – Bournemouth, Nottingham Forest – Brighton, Luton – Crystal Palace, and of course West Ham’s visit to Burnley. It promises to be an inspiring weekend of elite level football.

The Hammers have been uncharacteristically lucky with injuries so far this season. But, as news filtered back from the international camps, it looked like that was about to change . Michail Antonio, Jarrod Bowen and Mohammed Kudus all picking up worrying injuries – and Vladimir Coufal mixing up the moves to the Macarena in a Czech nightclub. Coufal reprising the famous Moore and Greaves Blackpool nightclub incident of 1971. Let’s hope that doesn’t turn out to be this season’s 3rd round draw.

Fortunately, the injuries to Bowen and Kudus do not appear to be as bad as first feared, and both should be available this afternoon. Antonio, however, is likely to be side-lined for some time. This should mean that the Hammers will start today with the same eleven that took the field against Nottingham Forest.

The injury scares have brought the ludicrous striker situation back into sharp focus. The negligence of starting a Premier League season with only Antonio and Danny Ings as your recognised strikers is truly astounding. And considering that both are well towards the sunset of their careers, it is doubly baffling. Thankfully, Bowen’s goal-scoring form has offered some compensation. If he can maintain the current rate of return he is on track to set a West Ham Premier League record for goals scored in a season – Paolo Di Canio’s 16 goals in 1999/2000 is the target to beat.

There has already been a slew of striker transfer stories online in advance of the January window – and as usual they range from the mundane to the ridiculous. However, the club’s room for manoeuvre may well be limited by the dreaded Financial Fair Play, which popped up in the week to bite Everton on the bottom. Perhaps FFP provides a blessing in disguise and forces the club to abandon its policy of buying expensive flops and selling them at a loss and rely instead on discovering young unknown talent. Over to you, Tim!

Everton’s ten-point deduction (should it stand on appeal) would seem to make it almost impossible for the Hammers to become embroiled in a relegation battle this season. With all three of the promoted sides struggling for points, the only team now below the Toffees are today’s opponents, Burnley.

Having romped away with last season’s Championship, Burnley’s return to the Premier League has proved to be a rude awakening. All four of their points have been won away from Turf Moor and defeat today would make it seven in a row at home. Of course, the patron saint of lost causes is always happy to serve up a game against West Ham in such desperate circumstances: “You haven’t scored in in a season and a half, Neal Maupay, let me see what I can do!”   

The Hammers have saved up some of their worst ever recent performances for games against the Clarets. A humiliating 3-0 thrashing in November 2019 and a home defeat by the same score in March 2018 – the game that prompted the London Stadium pitch invasion – spring to mind. Burnley are a very different proposition under the guidance of Vincent Kompany, but the omens are ominous.

The Clarets are one of only three teams in the Premier League to have conceded more goals than West Ham to date. The other two are Bournemouth and Sheffield United. That must be an uncomfortable statistic for the resilient defence obsessed David Moyes. It is interesting to compare our position after the opening 12 games of the current campaign against 2022/23. Last season a win against Bournemouth in Matchweek 12 took us up to 10th place – it would be our highest position all season – having scored 11 and conceded 12. This term, there are three more points on the board, while the team have scored 21 and conceded 22. So, has something changed in the Moyesball bag of tricks? Or can the differences be explained by individual performances?

It is difficult to put a finger on any drastic tactical change as it still comes across as the usual cautious and unadventurous fare. But if there is anyvariation, it is that the ‘low block’ of ten men behind the ball at all times has become more relaxed. More players are allowed to stay forward to assist with counter attacks. But the slightly higher press that has replaced the low block appears to be a haphazard, half-hearted affair. Despite the valiant efforts of Edson Alvarez in patrolling in front of the back four, opponents have been able to muster many more goalscoring opportunities.

At the other end of the pitch, West Ham are close to claiming back their crown as set piece supremo’s. Much of that is down to the extraordinary delivery from James Ward-Prowse plus the return to goalscoring form of Tomas Soucek. There is a trade-off from having JWP and Soucek in the side in that both have limitations in open play. If the two must play together, it works better when JWP has greater freedom in a more advanced role – not as part of a defensive midfield pivot.

The Hammers are now blessed with more creativity than they have for some time in the form of Kudus and Lucas Paqueta. Kudus is clearly still getting used to football in England and apart from a few special moments is more about potential than being a consistent performer. Paqueta is always looking for the unexpected and at times this can be frustrating when first time flicks go astray. Personally, he is the type if player I love to watch but would prefer him to keep his tricks to the attacking half of the pitch.

So, what to make of today’s game. The combination of Burnley’s shocking home run and the historic obliging nature of West Ham is a concern. On the other hand, from what I have seen of Burnley they are very vulnerable in the air at set pieces – a weakness that should tip the scales in the Hammers favour. No doubt Moyes will allow the home side most of the possession and it might just pay off on this occasion. COYI!        

Can West Ham extend the Clarets winless run at Turf Moor in the Claret and Blue derby this weekend?

Once again the international break has come along to spoil the flow of the Premier League season. There have only been twelve games played and we have already had three of them! It’s an absolute nonsense in my opinion and even more so for anyone who chose to watch England’s final two qualifying games for next year’s European Championships. Fortunately I was too busy watching some paint drying and therefore missed the spectacle of a 2-0 home win against mighty Malta and a point gained in a 1-1 draw in North Macedonia. Did I miss anything? Those I’ve spoken to who did view the games suggested not.

I’m not too sure of the injury situation for this week’s visit to Turf Moor but at one stage it was looking decidedly bad. Antonio had to be substituted after 20 minutes in Jamaica’s game, Bowen had to withdraw from the England squad and Kudus had a problem too. Hopefully it is not as bleak as was initially reported but it does make you think back to the summer transfer window, and the astonishing decision to not strengthen the squad in an attacking sense. It was inexplicable, perhaps inexcusable to sell Scamacca and not replace him before the current campaign got underway. And looking ahead to the beginning of next year and the African tournament, we could potentially lose Kudus, Benrahma and Cornet for a time. In the coming winter transfer window we have got to add to our attacking potential and hopefully with footballers who fit into the system. Perhaps Mr Steidten has a few aces up his sleeve. I certainly hope so.

In any event the comeback win against Forest in the final fixture before the break after a lacklustre first half performance means that with just under a third of the season completed we have crept back into the top half of the table in ninth position. And we sit just three points below Newcastle in seventh, the last of the qualifying places that can be achieved via league position.

There are plenty of worrying statistics to consider in advance of our trip to Burnley. Somehow we often manage to help sides to end poor runs of one kind or another. Perhaps the standout one is the fact that Burnley have played six home games this season and lost all of them. We are on a record breaking run ourselves from a West Ham point of view; our last seven games against promoted sides have been wins – we’ve never done that before. Two records that could end if it goes wrong this weekend.

I see that James Ward Prowse is the leading player in the Premier League for assists this season so far with nine. And despite his consistency over a long period and his standout form he can’t find a place in Gareth Southgate’s England squad, even one that was depleted with injuries. How Kalvin Phillips gets in despite barely playing for his club, and Jordan Henderson too now he has gone abroad for the money in a poor league is beyond me.

I see that Everton have fallen foul of Financial Fair Play regulations and been docked a record 10 points for doing so. I’m not sure too many of us fully understand the regulations, and I guess the Everton bosses didn’t either to allow themselves to get into this position. Or perhaps they did and thought they’d get away with it. They become only the third Premier League side to be deducted points after Middlesbrough; 3 points for failing to turn up for a game in 1996-97. They were ultimately relegated just two points from safety. Portsmouth went into administration in 2009-10, were deducted nine points and were relegated after finishing bottom a long way from safety. The omens aren’t great for Everton although the ten-point deduction leaves them only two points from safety at this early stage, mainly due to the poor results obtained by the promoted sides, Luton, Sheffield United and Burnley.

Many believe that we were lucky in 2006-07 to escape a points deduction when we were fined £5.5 million in respect of the signing of Tevez and Mascherano, breaking the rule regarding third party ownership. We subsequently agreed to pay Sheffield United a compensation settlement in the range of around £20 million intended to address their financial losses after they were relegated. Had we been docked just three points we would have gone down on goal difference. There is a kind of irony in the Everton points deduction in that the three man independent commission which punished them included Nick Igoe who was in charge of West Ham’s finances at the time of the Tevez / Mascherano affair.

We’ve got a busy time in the lead up to Christmas which is now just a month away. In that time we’ve got half a dozen league games against Burnley, Palace, Tottenham, Fulham, Wolves and Manchester United, as well as the final two Europa League group games and an EFL quarter-final tie at Liverpool. The league games will be very important to ensure that we stay in the race for European places next season. A poor run now could rule us out of contention leaving us to settle for mid table. It would be great to get the four points needed to top the group in Europe to progress into the knock-out stages in the second half of the season too. And wouldn’t it be brilliant if we can upset the odds at Anfield and move into the semi-finals of the EFL Cup.

Have we got the depth of squad to achieve these goals? Will we splash out in the window to help us to kick on in all fronts? How will we be affected by the loss of players to the African Nations Cup? Will we still be in the mix in the race for European qualification, and still in the cup competitions when we enter 2024? Will we go all out in the FA Cup when the third round gets underway in January? If we do have serious striker problems on Saturday will Mubama get more than five minutes playing time or will the manager stick with Ings? Can the manager adopt a more adventurous approach, or will his normal caution remain? Will the second half of the season peter out with little to play for?

An important month lies ahead beginning with Burnley. Can we inflict on them their seventh consecutive home defeat of the season? Will we extend our record against promoted sides to make it eight consecutive wins? Will we have any fit strikers? COYI!