I began last week’s article with “It has been a decent start to the season hasn’t it?” Since then it has got even better. Our very comfortable 2-0 win over Sheffield United made it 4 wins and 13 points from our first 7 games, and seventh place in the table. We’ve scored 13 goals in those games and conceded 10. Only 3 of the 7 games have been at home, a figure that will be balanced with the visit of Newcastle to the London Stadium.
In the Europa Cup we surpassed the record for any English side by beating Freiburg 2-1 in Germany to make it 17 consecutive European games unbeaten, surpassing the 16 of Leeds from 1968 and Tottenham in 1972 who were tied with us on 16. Even more remarkable is the fact that 16 of the 17 games have been victories, the sole draw coming against Gent (1-1) last season. The Germans finished fifth in the Bundesliga last season and are currently 8th this time. Their record this season after 6 games mirrored our Premier League one with 3 wins and a draw, 10 points. An impressive result with an outstanding performance from Paqueta, and Kudus is looking very good too. In fact most of the team had good games.
Our squad is looking impressive and we now have a range of options in a number (but not all) positions. And how good is James Ward-Prowse? Six assists and two goals so far – what a start to the season. Gareth Southgate, when picking his England squad, prefers 33 year old Henderson (playing in the Middle East in front of less than 1000 spectators), Kalvin Phillips (who can barely get a game for Manchester City) and Conor Gallagher (what are his statistics this season?) as midfielders. Amazing! At least the early season form of Jarrod Bowen hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Those of us of a certain age (my first game at Upton Park was in the late 1950s) will remember some seasons more fondly than others. It has been a roller coaster ride following the Hammers but some seasons have been particularly memorable. Newcastle’s eight goal mauling of Sheffield United recently took me back to 1985-86, one of the great seasons in our history, when we put eight past Newcastle on a Monday night in April when we were pushing towards the first division title which would have been the first in our history.
Ironically that season had started poorly with only one win in our first seven games. With six points we sat in seventeenth place in the league. Nowhere near our start this season. But from this point we went 18 successive league games without defeat before losing 1-0 at Tottenham on Boxing Day. But we then resumed winning ways and by the time we faced Newcastle in April we were still well placed to challenge for the title.
Our 8-1 win is remembered for an Alvin Martin hat-trick scored against three different Newcastle goalkeepers, goals from Goddard, McAvennie, Orr, a Stewart penalty, and a Glenn Roeder own goal. It was a fabulous season with the goalscoring partnership of McAvennie and Cottee (who scored 46 league goals between them), and a defence built upon the solid foundations of Parkes, Gale and Martin. We finished with 84 points in third place, just 4 points adrift of champions Liverpool.
Despite our improved start to this season compared to 38 years ago, we will not be challenging for the title, nor finish as high as third, but the opening has been promising, and I look forward to consolidation of a strong top half finishing position.
Our opponents this weekend had a massive resurgence last season and qualified for the Champions League. A fine draw in Italy was followed by the 4-1 demolition of PSG this week which suggests that this game will not be an easy one. But we must look to fixtures such as these to prove why we should be pressing towards the top eight this season.
How will we get on? Bookmakers have the Geordies as evens favourites, while we are priced at around 12/5, with the draw at 14/5. Thursday / Sunday psychologically seems to be a difficult challenge, especially as the late return from abroad reduces the time to recover for the next game. Newcastle, on the other hand, played at home on Wednesday, so have a distinct advantage in time between fixtures. Nevertheless I expect a close game to be settled by the odd goal. It won’t be a repeat of the 8-1 in 1986, but hopefully we can be the team to edge it. What are the chances?
Under The Hammers 