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BANG, WHIMPER

West Ham 1 Aston Villa 1

So the Behind Closed Doors element of this season’s Premier League has finally come to an end. What have we learned?

I am one of the few hundred who has attended all of the home games during this BCD period. It has been as surreal an experience as I have had in my 29 years at the club. The relief of certain Premier League status is tempered by the niggly irrational wish that this game counted for something. But it is a vital game for our kit cousins, Villa. They aren’t kit cousins today, sporting instead some green and black thing with red numbers. Probably a third choice kit that they are contractually bound to wear at least once in any given season.

It takes a full chanceless ten minutes of the game before the first moment of drama emerges almost out of nothing. Issa Diop hits what initially seems to be a hopeful punt forward, dropping perfectly into Antonio’s path. The eight goal BCDland striker controls the ball adroitly with a single touch but his ensuing shot curls agonisingly wide of Reina’s left hand post. A moment of hope out of nothing before the game reverts to nothing and no one land.

Now Aston Villa kick in and a cross from the right reaches Samatta who towers above Diop and places his header well, but all the effort of the leap has taken all the power out of his header, which Fabianski fields comfortably. Bournemouth have taken the lead at Everton. Will West Ham care? They have to want to win this last game. You’d think. They don’t seem to.

Both sides are playing with a lone striker. Slight disappointment that Moyes wouldn’t want to finish with a positive victory. I can already see the stats for this game at ninety minutes with all the play being around the centre circle. Noble and Fredericks pump in crosses from the right but anything the Villa defence lacks in class they more than make up for in height, so there are few titbits for Antonio or any advancing defenders to feed on.

Antonio is booked for a foul on McGinn after just 23 minutes – just trod on his heel, really – looked unintentional. Early bookings always give me the heebeegeebees especially if it’s a striker who may not have the most reliable tackling finesse to keep him from a second for the rest of the game. Watford are 3-0 down at Arsenal. Looks like a point will be enough for Villa.

Hammers waste some decent free kick positions, Rice is taking a pot shot at Reina every time he gets within 25 yards of him. Earlier on I had the pleasure of announcing to the gathered few that Declan Rice is the Hammer of the Year, with all that seems to bring for a West Ham player in the season following the award. Angelo Ogbonna can consider himself unlucky to be the runner-up, but they both deserve to be close for consistency over the season.

Villa finally get their first corner after 35 minutes, but it’s easily cleared as they haven’t pushed enough men forward to attack the inswinging ball from Hourihane. I look around in vain for a glance of the Heir to the Throne – surely he would have been able to get his hands on a ticket for this vital game. Ex-PM David Cameron once described himself as a Villa fan and the following year as a West Ham one, so his face wouldn’t be out of place in the director’s box. But neither are there. How about that? I can get in to a game that the future King and last long-serving UK PM both failed to get a ticket for.

Villa end the half with a chance for Jack Grealish who goes for placement rather than power against Fabianski who offers a training ground stop. A minute earlier Grealish attempted to dead leg Issa Diop but got away with it. Nice hair, but a bit of a fancy Dan as far as I’m concerned. Now I’ve written that, he’s bound to hit the winner.

In the second half Moyes opts for three strikers, bringing on Haller and Yarmolenko. This might have been a better idea from the start, bearing in mind how threadbare the chance sheet looked for them in the first half. Villa immediately take advantage with Samatta and McGill failing to take advantage of two decent half-chances. Villa are still attacking conservatively, never pushing more than five up for corners.

Johnson and Fredericks are both supporting well on the few overlap opportunities West Ham have in the second half. On the hour Hammers finally get a free kick on the edge of the area, and Yarmolenko curls it just wide of Reina’s left hand post.

The last quarter after the second drinks break sets the game alive with the arrival of Lanzini, first Haller heading Noble’s cross just over and then Lanzini in a position perfect for one of his magical free kicks, but this one he fails to lift even above the wall.

Bournemouth are now 3-1 up at Everton. West Ham can send Villa down if they can score. And naturally with that position of fate created and six minutes still to go, Villa score. Grealish picks up the ball on the lift and wrong foots his marker to give himself the half a second necessary to curl the ball past (or, as the replay indicates, through) Fabianski. It had to be Grealish. The extended goal celebration will put another couple of minutes on injury time, which isn’t great for Villa as West Ham then equalise immediately, a long ball from Rice finding Yarmolenko whose speculative shot clips Grealish’s right foot, the one which he’s just scored with at the other end, and spoons over Reina with a nightmare precision.

Felipe Anderson is West Ham’s fourth substitution, possibly his last appearance in a West Ham shirt. Moyes’ final throw of the dice comes to little and Villa tough it out over the four minutes of injury time to secure their Premier League status for 2020/21. Why can’t I feel happy for them? All I can think of, strangely, is Eddie Howe, who has kept Bournemouth in the top league for five seasons, now missing out on survival by a single point.

1 Lucasz Fabianski, 53 Ben Johnson, 23 Issa Diop, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 24 Ryan Fredericks, 41 Declan Rice, 16 Mark Noble (captain), 28 Tomas Soucek, 17 Jarrod Bowen, 18 Pablo Fornals, 30 Michail Antonio

Substitutes: 22 Sébastien Haller, 10 Manuel Lanzini, 7 Andriy Yarmolenko, 8 Felipe Anderson

Scorer: 7 Andriy Yarmolenko

BOWEN’S BULLSEYE

West Ham 3 Watford 1

This game sees Mark Noble’s 500th competitive appearance for West Ham, making him only the tenth ever Hammer to register this career stat. The previous player to achieve this was Steve Potts, who managed 505, back in 2002. Aaron Cresswell, with 211 appearances is the closest to Noble in appearances from the current squad, but Noble has only ever played for West Ham. It’s safe to say that he will probably be the last ever player in our lifetimes to register this magnificent achievement.

Watford will always be remembered for being the first away Premier League team to set out to play creative attacking football against West Ham at their new ground in September 2016. Turning a 0-2 deficit into a comfortable 4-2 victory, they were also the first away side to win at London Stadium in its new footballing livery. Deeney and Antonio, both scorers on that day, have four years on still been hitting the net regularly for their respective sides.

Tonight the teams don’t have the comfortable backdrop of early season experiment, facing their genuine do or die, stay up or go down moment. Should either side win this game they are virtually safe from the terror of relegation. David Sullivan declared earlier this year that it would be unthinkable financially for West Ham to suffer the drop to the Championship.

He wasn’t kidding.

With the advent of lockdown nipping at their heels back in February, Nigel Pearson’s Watford side beat Liverpool 3-0. Klopp’s side hadn’t at that point lost all season and had not been beaten in the league for 422 days. The two and a half month layoff has taken away something of Pearson’s magic touch, replacing it with an all too familiar early season panic. Watford have brought a squad of officials into West Ham’s BCD’s red zone larger than any other so far, to the extent that it creates a boisterous support worthy of a small travelling bunch of supporters, which of course they are. They all cheer the side on when they come on to the pitch. After ten minutes of the game however, the fan squad is effectively silenced.

As in the game from September 2016, West Ham race swiftly into a two goal lead, a close range finish by Antonio, his ninth of the season, preceding another Soucek header from another bullseye Bowen cross. The speed and efficiency of the goals seem to mock West Ham’s precarious position in the table. Watford have no answer and are further blunted when Declan Rice hits a dipping shot in from 25 yards past Ben Foster. There is an almost anti-climatic savagery to this goal glut, tempered only by the fact that they score no more before half time.

In the second half Watford are pulled up by the scruff of their respective necks thanks to a major effort by the untiring Deeney, and a minute after Kabasele’s header from a corner misses the target by a matter of inches, Deeney strokes home, after Decouré’s effort has come back off the post. Three minutes into the second half, this is, one imagines, just what they need. But this time it doesn’t happen for Pearson, as indicated when he substitutes Deeney after 20 further minutes to save him for the final two games against Manchester City and Arsenal. This is perhaps defeatist with plenty of time left, as it’s not like he’s bringing on John Barnes.

Fanciful Watford fans who remember Pearson’s heroics keeping Leicester City up at the end of the 2014-15 season, must have been preparing to lay out a few bob for their side to win the league in 2021. Even the revelation of a stash of Watford away fan crowd noises in stacks of homes watching live across Hertsmere cannot summon a goal or an error from the Hammers’ resolute defence. All that remains worthy of note from here on in is the fact that, duplicating his appearance off the subs’ bench again Chelsea, Haller almost scores with his first touch, chipping Foster from 25 yards, the ball bouncing just inches wide thanks to a last second’s left paw away from the Watford keeper.

This is when I start to think about the season as a whole, now we seem to have escaped punishment for its worst excesses. It started with Pellegrini – remember him? It seems a lifetime ago that his unsmiling eyes took in the horror developing before him after Fabianski’s injury at Bournemouth. Hammers were fifth in the table after that game, but by the time the 2019 Hammer of the Year returned between the sticks ten weeks later, West Ham were 17th. After this win, West Ham are now 15th, their highest position in the league since the December away win at Southampton. Back then, just two defeats later, Pellegrini carried the can and something approaching a £10m pay off to leave London Stadium.

So what can we conclude from all of these ruminations?

Let’s see how West Ham perform at Old Trafford next Wednesday, at Moyes’ former home-from-home. Manager of Manchester United was the kind of job Moyes must have dreamed of when his stock was high at Goodison Park, but it was a seat he occupied for just 296 days. In spite of the £5m pay-off, the spirit of the man must have been momentarily crushed. He’s already been manager at London Stadium over two reigns for substantially more than that, though much of it has been spent in lockdown. The measure of his appetite for the West Ham job can, for me, be ascertained by how important he feels it is for him to get a result at Old Trafford, even with Hammers safe from relegation. A win or a mere point would represent the promise of a considerably longer stay in post this time.

1 Lucasz Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 23 Issa Diop, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 53 Ben Johnson, 41 Declan Rice, 16 Mark Noble (captain), 28 Tomas Soucek, 17 Jarrod Bowen, 18 Pablo Fornals, 30 Michail Antonio

Substitutes: 22 Sébastien Haller, 4 Fabian Balbuena, 7 Andriy Yarmolenko

Scorers: 30 Michail Antonio, 28 Tomas Soucek, 41 Declan Rice

FOUR-WARNED

Norwich City 0 West Ham 4

West Ham were last relegated at the end of the 2010/11 season, bouncing back at the first attempt, and have enjoyed eight successive seasons in the Premier League since then. This afternoon the random nature of the fixture list takes them to Carrow Road to see off and relegate Norwich City and hopefully in the process take themselves clear of the bottom three towards a ninth Premier League season.

All of today’s Norwich City’s starting XI were playing for the club in the Championship last season, which is almost certainly where they’ll be playing later this year. This side beat last year’s champions Manchester City here last September, the first time City had been beaten in the Premier League for nine months, taking the Canaries to twelfth place in the table, just four points behind City. Now they are 48 points behind them, having lost (23) one more game than City have won (22). They have not gained a single point since the season restarted last month. Could West Ham be relegated along with them? The next 90 minutes will go a long way to answering that question.

Yarmolenko gives way to captain Mark Noble who returns after two matches out, and Hammers start well, Bowen seemingly brought down in the second minute by an elbow from his opposite number Emiliano Buendia as he heads down on goal. Referee Kevin Friend declines the invitation to action. A minute later Antonio almost puts Soucek in, but he runs out of space to get in a shot. Glenn Hoddle (BT Sport summariser) calls number 28 Tomás ‘Sir’ Check. Ian Dark (commentator) says ‘So Check’ – So-what? Do these commentary teams ever ask the West Ham media team how to pronounce their players’ names?

Antonio sets up Soucek for another shot on goal on seven minutes, but he places it marginally wide. Really hard to see Norwich getting anything out of this game if the first seven minutes are anything to go by. Four minutes later Antonio volleys home, and it’s another goal from a Bowen corner, flicked on by Issa Diop. Antonio earned the first of two corners after his goalbound flick was turned away by Tim Krul. The ensuing crash behind West Ham celebrations is the sound of eleven Norwich heads hitting the floor. Bowen’s corner technique, so effective against Chelsea and Newcastle United, has again yielded goal success.

Norwich do everything they can in search of an equaliser, but their levels of belief have clearly been seriously compromised. Bowen‘s stalker Buendia trips Antonio in the area, but the number 30 decides not to go to ground and the referee and his VAR team ignore the penalty claims, however a free kick is given for Buendia’s subsequent foul on Noble. The claims Noble has dived are contradicted by the evidence of several forensic replays, and his free kick is then headed home expertly by Antonio for goal number two.

The second half continues the agony for Norwich and for Bowen, who is twice badly fouled by Mario Vrancic, though the Norwich number 8 receives no booking. Extraordinarily lax refereeing from your Friend but not mine. A few minutes later Antonio has his hat-trick and West Ham’s third, his one on one with Krul initially saved, but the ricochet is headed home. It’s his first hat-trick in senior football – a timely achievement for him and the Hammers, and this single achievement may have guaranteed him the Hammer of the Year prize for 2020.

There are a couple of excellent saves from Fabulousanski on the hour before Norwich blood a stack of relegated youngsters from the bench. It’s all a bit dirt on the grave at this point. What a strange season – rare doubles for West Ham over Chelsea, Southampton and Norwich – maybe Watford too next week. On 74 minutes, Antonio has four. Noble to Fredericks to Antonio. The big man has doubled his tally for the whole season in just one game. An away achievement not unlike that of David Cross, who scored 4 away to Spurs back in September 1981, also the only goals of the game.

Antonio is subbed, and Haller is on. The BCD set up ensures no kind of reception for the number 30’s probable finest career moment, but it’s a small sacrifice in the bigger scheme of things. It’s six BCD goals in five games for Antonio. He is now the club’s top scorer this season with eight, one more than Haller. It’s also the first time in this mini-season that Moyes has used the full five substitutes. A good day at someone else’s office.

If Bournemouth lose at home to Leicester City (they then play Manchester City away on Wednesday) and Aston Villa (away to Everton on Thursday) to Crystal Palace, then Friday’s game against Watford may be something of a playground kick about, as a point will almost guarantee both teams Premier League football when the season starts again in September. You have been four-warned.

1 Lucasz Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 23 Issa Diop, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 24 Ryan Fredericks, 41 Declan Rice, 16 Mark Noble (captain), 28 Tomas Soucek, 17 Jarrod Bowen, 18 Pablo Fornals, 30 Michail Antonio

Substitutes: 22 Sébastien Haller, 4 Fabian Balbuena, 7 Andriy Yarmolenko, 19 Jack Wilshere, 26 Arthur Masuaku

Scorer: 30 Michail Antonio (4)

BRUTAL EFFICIENCY

West Ham 0 Burnley 1

Some things are better left unsaid, but let’s say them anyway.

Looking at the first three home games in the Behind Closed Doors zone, even the perceptive and thinking person’s Hammers’ fan would not have chalked up the Chelsea game for the only three-pointer. Even less likely would they have been to pick the Burnley game for a fixture that they would fail to score in, but that would be to ignore Burnley’s current form, second only to the champions. A win here would give them a double over the Hammers for the first time in 73 years. That was the line you didn’t want to hear, because it comes with a quality underlay that has ‘will happen’ running through it like a stick of rock.

As for Moyes’ team on the night, Yarmolenko starts, replacing Lanzini. It’s a commitment to attack, but a withdrawal of part of the chance engine room for the night. Sébastien Haller is finally fit enough to quash paranoid rumours that he has left the club, but for the moment he’s only out there to warm the bench. We will see him on the hour. This is more or less the team that has performed so well over the last two games, with Noble’s experience and Lanzini’s craft sacrificed for the youth and pace that Moyes prefers. More rumours abound that Noble will be taking one for the team and retiring at the end of the season so Rice can be offered the captaincy as an inducement to stay. Staying up will be the other essential variable to solve this conundrum.

West Ham start confidently enough but don’t have any of the penetration their last two performances suggested they might have tonight. Moyes’ Hammers teams in his second spell here have recorded a miserly 36% possession on average from game to game. Not exactly spectacular, but good to see that even this might be enough to keep us in the Premier League for another season.

Nick Pope, Burnley’s keeper, is a giant and current favourite to secure the ‘Golden Gloves’ award for 2020, having kept thirteen clean sheets this season. It may be fourteen in due course. The defence in front of him is also extraordinarily tall, so the high ball into the area won’t be yielding very much. Don’t be surprised to hear that tonight it’s going to be happening a lot. After just eight minutes, Burnley almost score, Erik Pieters screwing the ball over the bar from just inside the area. Then McNeil’s cross is headed wide by Vydra, from an even better position. Jarrod Bowen is hacked down on the left by Kevin Long. Sides quickly cotton on to the fact that this is the player they most need to trolley. Although it’s a dark compliment, it can’t help Bowen sleep very comfortably on the night after the match. After fifteen minutes West Ham finally create their first chance, but Soucek’s goalbound shot is blocked.

If you let your gaze drift out of focus so the players are just blobs, it would seem like the average body mass across the two sides would offer a ratio of about 3:2, with Burnley the 3. It’s thought that West Ham chose the claret and blue colours for their shirts over a century ago because they liked how Burnley and Aston Villa looked. So for tonight and for their last game of the season they will be pitched against the sides whose colours they copied. Does that mean anything in terms of their Premier League future? Ask in three weeks’ time.

Finally a gilt-edged chance is fashioned by Bowen who sets up Soucek to smash home, but Pope bashes out the point blank effort with a reflex stop. Bowen hits over the kind of corner that was troubling Chelsea’s defenders last week, but the Burnley defence are not remotely challenged. Moyes has spoken before the game about trying to iron out West Ham’s erratic streak. A win tonight is all that can do that.

I have started thinking to myself after the drinks break how we could relegate Norwich if we were to beat them this Saturday lunchtime. The fact that my mind is already wandering to Saturday is a worry. Ten minutes later events put some flesh on the bone of that thought when Burnley take the lead. One minute Jay Rodriguez is being castigated for wandering lazily into an offside position and the next he is getting on the end of a scintillating left wing cross from Charlie Taylor to head brilIiantly over Fabianski and in off the underside of the crossbar. It looked like an impossible snooker shot which he has pocketed by a deft twist of the neck and angular header. He has left Cresswell for dead this time, after Fredericks has been taken out by Taylor. Strangely enough, the closest West Ham will get to scoring in this game comes within the next sixty seconds when Ashley Westwood back passes Yarmolenko’s mistimed header directly into the path of Antonio who takes a touch before beating Pope with a curled shot, but his effort strikes the outside of the post and heads wide of the target.

The game has opened up, but now it’s Burnley who are dominating and Vydra should make it two with only Fabianski to beat, but he scuffs his effort wide. The only other moment of note before the half-time whistle is Yarmolenko’s shot that Pope sees late but still gets down in time to push away for a corner.

The second half looks at times as though it is being played underwater. Everything West Ham throw at Burnley seems to be aerial, which is never a problem for the Clarets’ defence. Bowen is stud-marked by James Tarkowski, the Burnley captain, who is yellow-carded. Cynical doesn’t coin it. Moyes seems to have forgotten that he still has three opportunities to make use of his reserve team of substitutes. Bowen’s next corner is reached by Soucek but his header is a lob over the bar rather than anything threatening. BT Sport’s commentator (I hear later) is calling him So-Check, Sky-style – are all the match researchers’ posts vacant?

Where is the goal we need? I can’t see one coming, even if we were to play for another two days.

West Ham’s weekend point against Newcastle has had its lustre compromised as Manchester City race into a three goal lead over them in just 55 minutes. The fertile imagination is an additional killer for all West Ham followers. Antonio tumbles in the area with Tarkowski who throws out a loose foot. On any other day it might be a penalty and a red card, but the rain must have got in Michael Oliver’s eyes. Good title for a song that. Finally Haller strips off his top and enters the arena to replace Yarmolenko, who has seemed a little bereft of ideas against the brutal efficiency of the Burnley defence. The effect is instant and with his first touch he finds Antonio and hits the return pass goalbound but Pope thrusts out a leg and sends it past the post. That was the moment. There will be no better one for him in the remaining half hour.

The few around me who should know better say that Dyche will spend the last ten minutes bringing on substitutes to waste time. He doesn’t. He knows the game is won, and he is better than that. Burnley are better than that, too. They have deserved the win and are a compact and well-organised side. We haven’t really hit the form of the previous two games, and to hit it against Watford and Aston Villa, the real six-pointer fixtures, would be more productive in every sense.

And so it’s Norwich City away on Saturday. This is a game Norwich must win to keep their Premier League ambitions alive. And Watford? They’re entertaining the fading Newcastle United. So who has the tougher challenge? But then again, they were saying that before the Chelsea game. West Bloody Ham. This is why we follow them.

1 Lucasz Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 23 Issa Diop, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 24 Ryan Fredericks, 41 Declan Rice (captain), 7 Andriy Yarmolenko, 28 Tomas Soucek, 17 Jarrod Bowen, 18 Pablo Fornals, 30 Michail Antonio

Substitutes: 22 Sebastien Haller, 27 Albian Ajeti

POINT WELL MADE

Newcastle United 2 West Ham 2

A week ago this was a must win game but, having not won it, a point has still been won and well made. Moyes fields the same starting XI as against Chelsea, keeping Haller fresh for Burnley on Wednesday. Within four minutes West Ham are ahead – a golden start. A cross from the right by the ever-improving Bowen on the overlap and Antonio has time to trap it and lance it up into the roof of the net. Something in that moment suggests that the fear of relegation has subsided in the players. Newcastle look nuked, but they slowly settle and begin to get back into the game. On eight minutes an unintentional handball in the area by Ogbonna blocking Shelvey’s effort suggests a potential VARt attack, but the referee and the whole of Stockwell Park wave play on.

On ten minutes Antonio frees himself to get in a shot that Dubravka fields well, but six minutes later Newcastle are level. Cresswell tries an ambitious pass down the line that Shelvey blocks and Newcastle begin a run of possession that ends with Joelinton finding Krafth whose pacy cross is slid home by Miguel Almiron. The reaction from the West Ham players is surprise rather than disappointment. What a difference from this time last week. Only West Ham can change your reactions to goals from the opposition over a handful of days. From heart-stopping anxiety to mild irritation, thanks to that victory over Chelsea.

But West Ham should be able to win this, and they get stronger as the match progresses, Jarrod Bowen having a genuine chance to restore Hammers’ lead after the first drinks’ break. Aaron Cresswell is brilliantly found by Declan Rice and his low cross picks out Bowen who makes a decent solid goalbound contact, but Dubravka moves quickly to block it with his left foot, a reaction save that keeps his side in the game.

A lot of West Ham’s approach play is very easy on the eye, almost arrogant at times, and those of us who should know better lean back on our respective sofas, seemingly convinced that, whatever happens, West Ham are not going to lose this one. Fornals, Rice and Soucek knock it around, offering a swagger and confidence that the side have not shown since last August. It seems like another time, another era, and for now, it will certainly do.

The second half continues to reflect West Ham’s superiority, but for all the possession, the chances are few. Mark Noble comes on for Manuel Lanzini in the 57th minute, taking the captain’s armband off Rice, the first time he has been part of this West Ham BCD resurgence. Within just eight minutes of his appearance, Hammers are back in the lead again. As on Wednesday, the opportunity is created from a Bowen corner, which Rice attacks with a far post header that strikes the bar, and from the rebound Soucek volleys the ball confidently into the back of the net. Just a few days after his first West Ham goal, Soucek has doubled his tally, but ninety seconds later Newcastle are level again. A quick move of interchanged passes sees Shelvey through and he slots the ball home. West Ham’s perfect offside trap has been compromised by Fornals’ slow retreat out, and he has played the two Newcastle strikers’ onside. Quite why West Ham’s defence froze like they did is a mystery – even at my level of football I was always encouraged to play to the whistle. During the ensuing drinks’ break, Moyes makes it clear to his gathering of onfield players, that this was a completely unnecessary goal to have conceded.

Andriy Yarmolenko comes on for Fornals with a little over a quarter of an hour to play, in a clear attempt to encourage a repeat of history, but Newcastle aren’t as desperate as Chelsea to score, and even though Andy Carroll makes a late appearance, the game ends in a draw. Sixteen West Ham attempts to a whole lot less from Newcastle. Days were that that many attempts on goal on the road under Pellegrini might have taken four or five games. This was just one. Disappointing not to win it, but the point sets up Wednesday night’s game against Burnley. A victory then would take West Ham to 34 points and a Saturday lunchtime fixture against Norwich City, who may already be relegated by then. But perhaps be wary of counting chlorinated chickens – the swimming pools aren’t open yet…

1 Lucasz Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 23 Issa Diop, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 24 Ryan Fredericks, 41 Declan Rice (captain), 10 Manuel Lanzini, 28 Tomas Soucek, 17 Jarrod Bowen, 18 Pablo Fornals, 30 Michail Antonio

Substitutes: 16 Mark Noble, 7 Andriy Yarmolenko

Scorers: 30 Michail Antonio, 28 Tomas Soucek

SPURRED OFF

Tottenham Hotspur 2 West Ham 0

Tuesday 23rd June 2020

Just three days after their disappointing home defeat against Wolves, West Ham have the chance to ease free from the pull of the Premier League’s relegation zone. It is a perverse fact that whenever the Hammers are in desperate need of points, a fixture against Tottenham Hotspur is never very far away.

And what of Spurs? That tedious glistening team who never quite make it to the upper reaches of anything, and yet always seem to be just out of reach of the more rooted, regimented and realistic West Ham United. Last year’s win at the glittering new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium lowered it to just another flash ground housing an ordinary overrated team, Hubris Hotspur.

The inevitable defeat appears in the emperor’s victory jacket in the first two minutes of the game. A long hopeful ball is hit into the Tottenham area, Antonio plays targetman to head it down into the path of Noble who tries to take a touch rather than just hitting it first time. That would have been a goal up inside ninety seconds. Instead all that comes from it is a feeble appeal for a penalty, and that’s no kind of second prize.

Bowen is settling in to the speed and challenge of Premier League football, but with Noble and Antonio playing up with him, this looks like a very strange formation. Balbuena is back and makes some decent defensive headers out when the going gets tough. Martin Tyler and Alan Smith both insist on calling Tomas Soucek ‘So-Check’ which for some reason I find really irritating. I will be even more irritated by it in the second half, but for now West Ham are more than a match for their North London neighbours.

Spurs seem to have no answer to Bowen other than to foul him every time he gets near the ball. It’s a kind of compliment, but because they don’t get cumulative yellow cards if the fouls are carried out each time by a different player, it ends up counting for nothing. Fornals gets a yellow for a late tackle on Aurier. This is when I notice that his shirt indicates he is P. Fornals. Is the P. necessary because he has a brother playing in the academy side? No, he’s just taking the P. plain and simple.

Moyes hasn’t beaten Mourinho in thirteen attempts. It’s the kind of stat that makes you want to hunt for that episode of Question Time with Joey Barton on it that you’ve never got round to watching. It’s gotta make you feel better than watching this, no?

Davies chops down Bowen on twenty minutes, so a chance for a long free kick into the area after moving everyone up. Noble hits it deep at the high line, and Antonio’s shot is well blocked by Lloris as is Bowen’s return effort. Antonio has scored prolifically against Spurs over the years, if you can call four goals prolific. Anything to raise the hope stakes.

Lucas Moura hits a dipping effort which Fabianski turns over, earning his match fee in one save. Noble cops a yellow after just 25 minutes pulling back Lo Celso after his free kick wasn’t deep enough to get past the Spurs back line. He won’t be taking part in much of the second half I’m guessing.

Then Spurs, having finally settled after the part of the game when West Ham were on top, score in the final minute of the first half, Son blasting in from the edge of the area past Fabianski. Un-effing-believable. Especially the irritating ‘goal celebration’ music that sounds like something you might hear an uninspired busker play at Seven Sisters station, if anyone was stupid enough to play there on a behind closed doors match day. Thankfully on the slide rule VAR, Ryan Fredericks’ buttocks prove less curvy than Scott Parker’s (it says here), and Son is adjudged to have received the ball in a position when his arm was offside. But he can’t touch the ball with his arm, can he, so how does that work? VAR responds in West Ham’s favour for the first time since that away match at Bournemouth earlier in the season, and Hammers get to half-time still level, the promise of a valuable away point still alive.

Six minutes into the second half Bowen gets himself into an excellent shooting position, only to offer the Fornals finish, as we may have to christen it since last Saturday. Dier crocks Antonio after Kane has crocked Fornals. Cynical bunch, Mourinho’s lot. Then, as I’ve christened it, Fornals gets his chance with a fantastic cross field ball from Bowen right into his stride just outside the six yard box and he scuffs at it as if it was on his wrong foot (it wasn’t). What a chance. Not unlike the one he actually put away at Anfield. ‘He’s technically much better than that,’ says Alan Smith, in summary. Within minutes Kane, the crocker, dips a shot over Fabianski’s bar. Just ten minutes in, Kane puts another effort from an expert cross wide. The golden boot. Does gold rust? Chances are coming thick and fast at both ends, and here is Antonio who always scores against Spurs, putting one into the stands on the hour.

Then, Spurs score, and what a panty-lining of nonsense it is. Lo Celso’s corner is headed wide by Sanchez, but clips So-So-Check and trickles into the corner of the net. The VAR replay suggests Sanchez has actually handled it, but this time the VAR official, after some delay, chooses to ignore the evidence. Anderson and Lanzini replace Noble and Fornals to little effect. Martin Tyler says, ‘Lanzini’s got a bit of a record in London derbies,’ but the last twenty minutes suggest this perception may have been acquired from a bygone age. The last decent chance for the Hammers falls to Bowen who hits the post from a pull back by Anderson. West Ham continue to push forward and five minutes later Spurs get a second, Son playing Kane through, and that is that.

Two BCD games, four goals conceded, none scored, no points. Could do better.

1 Lucasz Fabianski, 24 Ryan Fredericks, 4 Fabian Balbuena, 23 Issa Diop, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 16 Mark Noble (captain), 41 Declan Rice, 28 Tomas Soucek, 17 Jarrod Bowen, 30 Michail Antonio, 18 Pablo Fornals

Substitutes: 8 Felipe Anderson, 10 Manuel Lanzini

THE SHOCK OF THE FEW

West Ham 0 Wolverhampton Wanderers 2

Saturday 20th June 2020

On current form, even with an unexpected gap of over a hundred days since their last game, this result was not unexpected. Wolves are a force to be reckoned with this season under Nuno Espírito Santo, and Adama Traoré an inspirational substitute to have as part of your armoury. So was this just a temporary disappointment? Can Moyes’ troops reconnoitre for their forthcoming challenges against lesser opposition to save their Premier League status?

I was one of the few hundred who arrived at London Stadium, the home of the Hammers, on June 20th 2020, in awe of the afternoon ahead. It was a game that ordinarily would have been attended by 60,000 boisterous fans, mouthing pleading chants for East End redemption, spurred on by Vera Lynn’s stirring rendition of ‘Bubbles’ just before kick off. Instead, banks of seats, blanketed by throws baying out ‘Pretty Bubbles In The Air’ and ‘West Ham Till I Die’ replaced the cheers and chants with their encouraging but soundless words. A minute’s silence for those who had fallen victims to the biblical pandemic, the fifteen second taking a knee after the referee’s whistle by players in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, both offered a respectful acknowledgement of the unparalleled nature of the last few merciless weeks in the UK and the world.

Schooled in the behind closed doors substance of the new game, focusing on the football on the pitch was not nearly as problematic as it would have been a few weeks ago. Brighton had secured an earlier injury time win over Arsenal, and Bournemouth would have the chance of securing three points later on against Crystal Palace. Only three points would ensure West Ham were clear of the drop zone by the end of the day.

Moyes was without Haller and Ogbonna but had Soucek and the transfer-speculation Ngakia in his starting eleven.

The first ten minutes were tortuous with Hammers failing to get into the Wolves’ half for more than a few seconds at a time, but in the thirteenth minute a long pass from Noble found Fornals clear with the ball dropping favourably for a sighter of Patricio and the gaping net behind him, but unbridled power won over placement and the ball was soon heading up into the empty stands behind the goal. It was to be the only genuine chance of the half for West Ham, and they trundled off exhausted, but still level at half-time.

For Wolves, it looked throughout like a perfectly-executed plan. On the hour, Nuno brought on Traoré and Neto for Jota and Dendoncker, and his side began to push forward. Jiminez put Wolves ahead eight minutes later with an unmarked header from Traoré’s tantalising cross, and then Neto found the back of the net with a vicious volley from the edge of the box to dispatch Doherty’s byline delivery.

Moyes’ side could offer little on the day in response, despite the late arrival of Lanzini and Yarmolenko, players whose appearances off the bench have made a difference in the past. The strange present is where we now reside though, and as I placed my face mask back over my mouth and headed towards the car park, I wondered what the return of Haller, scorer in two friendlies before the game but sidelined with a hip injury, might offer.

The later lifeline of Palace’s win at Bournemouth kept West Ham out of the bottom three by the end of the day, but they probably need another thirteen points from their last eight games, half of which they’ve already amassed from their first thirty.

The only hope is how home advantage seems to count for little in this new mini season we are now entering, and it might well be the ‘away’ fixtures at Newcastle and Norwich that offer the opportunities for the majority of the points necessary for Hammers to avoid relegation. We shall see.

1 Lucasz Fabianski, 52 Jeremy Ngakia, 23 Issa Diop, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 8 Felipe Anderson, 28 Tomas Soucek, 17 Jarrod Bowen, 16 Mark Noble (captain), 41 Declan Rice, 18 Pablo Fornals, 30 Michail Antonio

Substitutes: 20 Manuel Lanzini, 7 Andriy Yarmolenko, 24 Ryan Fredericks

LAST GAME BEFORE LOCKDOWN

Arsenal 1 West Ham United 0

Saturday 7th March 2020

People are beginning to realise that something is changing in the world that has nothing to do with football, though it may well affect it. The COVID-19 virus first appeared in Wuhan City, China, in late December 2019. Last Tuesday cases have begun to emerge in Spain, but the World Health Organisation have yet to declare it a pandemic. Nevertheless we have now seen the first person to die of it on English soil, a seventy year old woman from Reading, just two days ago.

After West Ham United’s superb 3-1 demolition of Southampton last weekend which has lifted the side clear of the relegation zone and inspired some new-found confidence in David Moyes’ men, a visit to the mercurial Arsenal may just be what is needed. Arsenal’s ragged home form which saw them lose all three games in December to Brighton, Manchester City and Chelsea, has been reversed by recent victories over Newcastle United and Everton, but the side haven’t won away since December – we won’t point out who that was against.

The Hammers have lost their last five away games, but the last of these was a narrow 2-3 reverse at Anfield, with Lukasz Fabianski making two errors that gifted goals to the reds, possibly his first such mistakes for the side, so there is a welling up of enthusiasm when they take to the field. There are 60,335 fans crammed into the Emirates for the game, and the fans fell silent as early as the second minute when Jarrod Bowen turned well only to see his well-aimed left foot shot, that almost beat Leno, spin away for a corner off the foot of the post. Eight minutes later Michail Antonio burst through on the right after a brilliant one-two with Pablo Fornals that gave him a clear shot on goal, only to suddenly turn provider instead of executioner, laying the ball behind the too-swiftly advancing Sébastien Haller, from where it was cleared with relief by Nicolas Pepe who had made good ground into a saving cover position for Arsenal.

West Ham continued to push forward throughout the first half, breaking confidently, and eighteen minutes in Mark Noble’s slide rule short pass found Haller with a genuine goal chance that disappeared as soon as it had arrived after a heavy first touch. Sokratis hit the top of the bar with a header as Arsenal began to settle. Six minutes from half-time a Mark Noble corner found Issa Diop, whose header was turned inches wide by Antonio just a yard out from goal. These four gilt-edged opportunities in the first half suggested a fate that was to prevail.

Arsenal improved in the second half and Fabianki saved well from Nketiah’s low effort seven minutes after the restart, but two minutes later Cresswell’s cross was flicked on by Haller only for Leno to deny Antonio’s header with an acrobatic save. Hammers continued to press forward and Bowen stretched Leno with a powerful low shot, but twelve minutes from time a blocked shot spun out to Mezut Özil whose header was dispatched by Alexandre Lacazette, looking a good two feet offside. Referee Martin Atkinson immediately disallowed the goal as Sian Massey-Ellis’s flag had been immediately raised, but the good VAR people in Stockton Park had other ideas, eventually, after a few seconds short of three minutes. There is something about a goal awarded after this kind of delay, especially one which looked irregular to the naked eye, that provides a metaphorical winding punch to the gut of the side that concede it. It was proved with the necessary technology that Ogbonna had indeed played Özil onside by a couple of inches, but the VAR award still felt somehow more like a theft than an act of justice.

Pulling their socks up, Hammers returned to battle, determined that this mishap should not shape the eventual outcome of the game, and seven minutes from time Bowen found Haller in the area with an impossibly precise pass that Haller this time struck perfectly only to be denied by another expert reflex save from Leno. It would have been a richly deserved finish for Moyes’ side who had battled well with six direct efforts on goal to Arsenal’s two over the ninety minutes, despite having just 39% possession.

Other results over the weekend proved less harsh than the events of the match and Hammers were to preserve their position outside of the relegation zone, albeit narrowly on goal difference above Watford and Bournemouth.

Looking back at this report at the end of April, 53 days later from a very different football-free world, this game seems a lifetime away. The following weekend’s Premier League games were all postponed, and although we hear that West Ham began training yesterday, and that there may well be a recommencement of the league in early June, this season will not be completed by games played in front of stadiums heaving with expectant fans. The idea of completing the 2019/20 season with the remaining games played behind closed doors seems the only realistic solution. The French football season was suspended this week until September, this week will tell us whether the English ones will suffer the same fate.

And so West Ham lost a game that perhaps they should have won, a sentence that their fans will have read many times before, in different publications. It will in all likelihood be the last time it is written four days before the World Health Organisation’s declaration that we are officially in the grip of a world pandemic.

1 Lucasz Fabianski, 52 Jeremy Ngakia, 23 Issa Diop, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 17 Jarrod Bowen, 16 Mark Noble (captain), 41 Declan Rice, 18 Pablo Fornals, 30 Michail Antonio, 22 Sebastien Haller
Substitutes: 11 Robert Snodgrass, 8 Felipe Anderson, 28 Tomas Soucek

MEMORABILIA CITY

West Ham United 3 Southampton 1

Saturday 29th February 2020

This season West Ham play Southampton at home on Saturday February 29th. They have only played three other games on this leap year day in the last seventy years, all of them as a top flight club, but none as a Premier League team. So whatever happens, it’ll be a first.

West Ham are eighteenth in the Premier League, in the relegation zone, and needing urgently to win especially as they only have recorded one success at home in 2020, the 4-0 New Year Day’s victory over Bournemouth. Curiously, just like their last home game on February 29th in 1992 (a 0-2 defeat at the hands of Everton), there are protests against the Board outside the ground before kick off, but although a few thousand congregate, it is a protest that for the moment seems consigned to outside. These affairs often seem to last as long as it takes the side to score a decent comfortable victory. The 1991-92 side were eventually relegated from the last ever First Division. Maybe today’s Premier League fixture will be one with a different ending.

Jarrod Bowen, West Ham’s £18m striker, makes his first start, his 54 goals for Hull City, 17 of them this season, promising great things. West Ham have lost five of their last six games, so something has to change. After just twelve minutes, Bowen justifies his price tag, with a powerful shot which James Ward-Prowse does well to block for a corner. Two minutes later Pablo Fornals pounces on a poor clearance and slides Bowen through for a deliciously expert finish to put the Hammers ahead on his debut. Moyes pre-match suggestion that ‘We can’t expect a lad from the Championship to be our saviour,’ appears to have been a psychological call to arms. Michail Antonio subsequently puts in a powerful cross after a brilliant overlap which Haller heads straight at McCarthy.

Southampton who haven’t really been in the game at all up to this point, snatch an equaliser on the half hour from Michael Obafemi, who expertly chips Ward-Prowse’s cross over Fabianski for an intelligently finish. This is a player who only ever seems to score away from home. Should have noticed that and marked him more effectively. A few minutes later Issa Diop sees his close in header from Cresswell’s corner hit a Southampton player as it sails narrowly wide, but Anthony Taylor awards a goal kick. Come on, VAR people at Stockley Park. That was a corner…

Now comes a very strange and rare West Ham goal, perfect for a game played on February 29th. Sébastien Haller plays a neat pass to Antonio who hits in a looping cross for which Haller and McCarthy challenge. You’ve seen these a hunded times. It always ends with the goalkeeper punching the ball cleanly away. Except this time McCarthy decides he’s going to catch it, and his flailing hands are no match for Haller’s jump, and he heads the ball clear of the keeper and lithely connects with it at the far post – his own assist – to restore West Ham’s lead. It’s his first goal since New Year’s Day and a very welcome one nullifying, as it does, Obefemi’s equaliser, after a minor VAR thirty second flap. A later raid on a European stats website reveals that each of Sebastien Haller’s 31 goals within the top five European leagues has been scored from inside the box (seven for West Ham and 24 for Eintracht Frankfurt).

The second half is a little less frenetic, despite Southampton’s phenomenal four from five wins on the road, and West Ham add to their lead ten minutes after the restart when a neat back header from Haller allows Fornals the chance to play Antonio through, and he finishes with a powerful right foot shot past McCarthy. 3-1. On the hour Antonio has the chance to score a second after a cheeky but brilliant rabona through ball from Haller, but this time McCarthy manages to get something on it to divert it inches wide. Hammers finish the game well after their narrow defeat at Anfield, and end up comfortable winners and out of the relegation zone that they had found themselves trapped inside for a week. This will prove more significant than the 60,000 departing fans realise, as the next game at this stadium will be played behind closed doors, four months from now.

For the moment, though, West Ham have ended the week with their first league goals and league points ever recorded on a February 29th. The next one that falls on a Saturday is in 2048. Put it in your diary now.

1 Lucasz Fabianski, 52 Jeremy Ngakia, 23 Issa Diop, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 17 Jarrod Bowen, 16 Mark Noble (captain), 41 Declan Rice, 18 Pablo Fornals, 30 Michail Antonio, 22 Sebastien Haller
Substitutes: 11 Robert Snodgrass, 8 Felipe Anderson

Goals: Jarrod Bowen (14), Sébastien Haller (40), Michail Antonio (54).

West Ham United 3 Brighton & Hove Albion 3

Saturday 1st February 2020

Just a month after beginning his second spell at London Stadium, David Moyes is beginning to realise that saving the club from the dull magnetic pull of the Championship might not be the slam dunk it may have originally appeared. January offered a home win and an FA Cup triumph at Gillingham, but one lone point from four league games and a bundling out of the FA Cup at the hands of Slaven Bilic’s West Brom – Bilic was the man he took over from last time at the club, remember – put the task ahead into focus.

Still, a home fixture against Brighton, a club just two points ahead of West Ham in the table, offered a chance to ‘stop the rot’. In their first attack of the game, Brighton’s Aaron Moy headed a perfectly placed cross wide from the edge of the corner of the six yard box when it looked easier to score. A few minutes later Brighton’s Trossard was put clear but fluffed his finish. The difference between the teams eventually proved to be the power and pace of the returning Antonio, the energy and flair of the Czech debutant Tomáš Souček, and the industrious Robert Snodgrass, someone you would always want to seed your lawn – he would not miss an inch. And it was Snodgrass’ curling concave cross that found Issa Diop at the far post to toe-poke West Ham in front. Snodgrass himself gave Hammers a two goal interval lead on the stroke of half-time with a heavily deflected shot from inside the area from Fredericks’ cross. West Ham’s season was now into February with still only three home games won, but at least this one now looked in the bag.

The new paragraph should indicate that things are never that straightforward with the Hammers. For the neutrals and Brighton fans, their first goal response a couple of minutes into the second half was an absolute comedy classic. Mildly under pressure from Glenn Murray, the returning Brighton striker who always seems to score against West Ham, Fabianski saved him the bother of scoring by punching Pascal Gross’s corner into Ogbonna, and the Italian defender dispatched the assist into the top corner off his back. Despite this unexpected setback, Hammers continued to press forward fired by the running and energy of Michail Antonio, and ten minutes later from a Cresswell corner Snodgrass struck the ball sweetly home from just inside the area, via Bernardo’s head, for his second deflected goal of the game, guaranteeing a double entry on the dodgy goals committee agenda on Monday. With an hour gone, Moyes chose to focus on preserving the lead with a double substitution, replacing Souček and Antonio with Masuaku and Fornals. The tactic made sense, but seemed to take the zip out of the home team’s performance, which they didn’t recover.

Ultimately this game of deflected goals and moments of high comedy enjoyed another rib tickler a quarter of an hour before the end when Diop and Ogbonna tragically froze like twins in a traffic accident to allow Gross in to poke at the ball before Fabianski could reach it, his contact proving just sufficient for it to roll agonisingly slowly into the corner of the net like the pot of an expert snooker player. That still wouldn’t have been enough for a two point surrender, but then five minutes later Murray managed his regular London Stadium goal, his first in the League since the previous May, firing in from close range after appearing to control the ball with his hand. The hated VAR suddenly seemed to be about to intervene in the role of saviour. This time though the various replays proved inconclusive and the goal was given. Lanzini was brought on for the tiring Snodgrass but there was to be no last minute winner. Indeed, had it not been for Fabianski’s Olympic leap to tip over Solly March’s curling, dipping free kick it could have been a completely pointless day out. As it was, West Ham’s season long habit of surrendering leads was again in evidence, as was a first drop into the bottom three. With trips to Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal to come in the weeks ahead, things are looking a little tragic.

1 Lucasz Fabianski, 24 Ryan Fredericks, 23 Issa Diop, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 16 Mark Noble (captain), 41 Declan Rice, 11 Robert Snodgrass, 26 Tomas Soucek, 30 Michail Antonio, 22 Sebastien Haller
Substitutes: 10 Manuel Lanzini, 18 Pablo Fornals, 26 Arthur Masuaku

Goals: Issa Diop (30), Robert Snodgrass / Adam Webster (45), Robert Snodgrass / Bernardo (57).

SLAV’S RETURN

West Ham United 0 West Bromwich Albion 1

Saturday 25th January 2020

London Stadium, the newest ground in the Premier League, is a stadium that managers have come to enjoy visiting over the last three and a half seasons. The only current Premier League sides yet to win here in all that time are Aston Villa, Sheffield United and Norwich City, the three teams who were promoted from the Championship last year.

The Fourth Round of the FA Cup has nevertheless thrown the Hammers a fixture that might offer the chance to make it three games out of three that they have managed to defend their home status against, this being the side most likely to be playing them in the Premier League next year, if they can manage to stay in it for another season. The team are West Bromwich Albion, managed by the ex-Hammers man who was sacked in November 2017, Slaven Bilic. He was then replaced by his opposite number today, David Moyes, though Moyes is in his second incarnation as West Ham boss. Bilic could be forgiven for being unaware that Manuel Pellegrini had ever worked here. Now he has built a strong West Brom side who are currently top of the Championship, and he might fancy his chances this afternoon.

One thing Bilic has always been good at is surprising opposition with his tactics on the road. Few will forget his first three away games managing West Ham, where he took maximum points from visits to Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City. This afternoon he is the away manager, and he gets a generous reception from Hammers fans who imagine their number is already in the hat for the fifth round draw. Those of us who have followed the club for a while have an idea that this will not be an easy game, and the three places that separate the sides across the leagues suggest that this may well be right.

Unlike his predecessor, Moyes has understood that the home fans take all competitions seriously, and he has put out a strong side to demonstrate intent. West Brom, who haven’t, still make the first assaults on goal, and Randolph is tested early with a decent shot from Edwards that he manages to get down to just in time to palm away to safety.

There are just nine minutes on the clock when, in their second serious attack, West Brom score, Conor Townsend hammering home wide on the left after good link up play with Charlie Austin.  These days Bilic sports a scholarly beard which hangs a good six inches below his chin, and he unsurprisingly gives it a few congratulatory tugs to celebrate his side’s early strike. Just eight minutes later it is Townsend again, this time sending in a menacing cross which is headed narrowly wide by the Baggies’ best player of the afternoon, Krovinovic.

West Ham find themselves camped in their own half for most of the first half and after a rare moment of indecision from Declan Rice, Townsend intercepts and sends in a perfect hanging cross for Austin, which the striker manages to put wide with only Randolph to beat. Rice makes up for his error five minutes later with a decent strike from outside the area which Bond watches miss the target by less than a foot. It’s West Ham’s only decent chance in the whole of the first half.

Moyes makes a bold triple substitution at the beginning of the second half, replacing Sanchez, Fornals and Balbuena with Noble, Antonio and Ogbonna. Five minutes in though, and West Brom almost get a second. Edwards’ cross is headed powerfully goalwards by Austin, but straight at Randolph. Finally West Ham begin to string a few decent passes together, and Lanzini hits in an exquisite cross which Ajeti deflects sweetly with a flick of the head, but agonisingly just past Bond’s left hand post.  Ajeti is in the thick of the action on the break minutes later, and Ajayi is red-carded for holding him back, having been yellowed already in the first half. Can the Hammers now make the extra man difference count in the last twenty minutes?  There is a sudden industry about Moyes’ outfit. Mark Noble is just inches wide with a curled shot from just outside the area and in the final scheduled minute Rice produces another skidding long shot that Bond manages to parry, fortunate that no one is around to tuck the loose ball away.

In injury time Antonio throws off his marker and chooses not to go down after he is clearly tripped in the area by Tulloch. Instead he sets up another chance for Rice, which Bond this time pushes away cleanly. There is still time for one last attack when Noble feeds Antonio and his cross is cleared straight back at the Hammers’ midfield general who, arriving prematurely, can only spoon his shot over the bar. So West Ham’s hunt for silverware in 2019-20 is over, and yet another manager has won at London Stadium. It is another away scalp for Slaven Bilic and the other ex-Hammer on his staff at the Hawthorns, Julian Dicks.

Moyes’ side have now got a handful of home games in the next few weeks to gather the points to ensure that these two sides meet here again next season.

West Ham: 35 Darren Randolph, 5 Pablo Zabaleta, 4 Fabian Balbuena, 23 Issa Diop, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 18 Pablo Fornals, 15 Carlos Sanchez, 41 Delan Rice, 27 Adrian Ajeti, 22 Sebastien Haller, 10 Manuel Lanzini

Substitutes: 16 Mark Noble, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 30 Michail Antonio

TANGLED UP IN BLUE

West Ham 1 Everton 1

Saturday 18th January 2020

Darren Randolph’s appearance for his second West Ham career debut makes it four different goalkeepers who have started for the Hammers this season. That’s a slightly unsettling statistic for what is proving to be a more than unsettling season. Moyes’ disappointment at the Sheffield United result where he thought Snodgrass had grabbed a deserved late equaliser proved to be another accurate but crippling VAR decision. Is it a blip or the real thing? This season has had Hammers’ fans thinking that way.

Everton’s last visit here saw them well beaten with two goals from Manuel Lanzini. His appearance this afternoon is a welcome eleventh from a barren season that has provided neither goals nor anything like the number of assists accrued in previous campaigns. Everton have Carlo Ancelotti in the manager’s seat, and he’s won three of his last four games in charge.

Snodgrass is putting in a decent shift and is the first to test Pickford with a shot from the edge of the area. West Ham look very different under Moyes: less organised but more unpredictable. As we’ve seen this season, the away teams tend to have done a job on West Ham in terms of their research, and six losses against three wins tells that story most eloquently. The two early season wins and the Bournemouth result on New Year’s Day are slim home pickings from a thin season.

Snodgrass is put through by Declan Rice, and he puts the chance away, though the lack of fight by the Everton defence suggests it’s a clear offside. VAR is interested however, and for a moment we wonder if this could be a balancing up moment for what happened a week ago… It’s closer than I thought at the time, but still a country mile. A few minutes later Noble find Heller closing in from the right, but he shoots straight at Pickford who blocks the shot competently. I start wondering when it was that West Ham last had a striker who could raise your hopes with just the keeper to beat. No, there haven’t been that many. You’d need a Messi or a Ronaldo, and even those two have been known to disappoint.

Everton are pretty clueless for a team that have won three out of four, and when they give the ball away for a third time, Snodgrass feeds Lanzini, whose cross falls just behind Haller’s run… Haller seems to inevitably arrive too late or too early. You get the feeling that when he starts getting it right, he’ll be scoring goals by the hatful. Fabian Delph is impressing, playing out of defence to construct a run of play that sees Everton settling. Raising his and Everton’s game, he goes in heavily on Lanzini, and from Snodgrass’s curling free kick, Issa Diop squeezes in behind the Everton defence to grab the first goal, West Ham’s first headed effort of the season in mid-January, Diop celebrating with the customary hanging tongue smile.

West Ham are unable to control the game for the last five first half minutes to take the lead to the changing room, but before this predictable event occurs, I make a study of David Moyes. Everton probably represent the best years of his career in terms of achievements, with consistent top half finishes, and the comforting knowledge that Manchester United were keeping him on ice to replace Alex Ferguson whenever he finally saw fit to retire. Now he’s just here to clear up Pellegrini’s expensive mess. Everton have a late corner which is flicked on by Mason Holgate to Dominic Calvert-Lewin who steers the ball past Randolph with a deft header. It seems a little undeserved, and Hammers almost answer with a second as Zabaleta’s cross finds the head of Fornals, but Pickford is equal to it with a stunning left hand reaction save.

Everton start the second half marginally better that West Ham, but squander three excellent opportunities in the first ten minutes. A point suddenly looks like it might be a decent part of the spoils to take away from this. Jason Pickford is more than able to deal with all that a Hammers can chuck at him this time round, and claws away a great deflected effort from Snodgrass later on. Ajeti has a VAR potential red to ward off after he appears to deliberately head-butt Holgate, who might have fooled the referee if he hadn’t been so keen to collapse like he’d just been shot.

Eventually both sides resign themselves to the compromise salary from what has been a frustrating afternoon. Moyes has to face the other Merseyside team twice in the next five games. Even a smile would be something from those two fixtures.

35 Darren Randolph, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 5 Pablo Zabaleta, 23 Issa Diop, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 16 Mark Noble (captain), 41 Declan Rice, 10 Manuel Lanzini, 11 Robert Snodgrass, 22 Sébastien Haller, 18 Pablo Fornals

Substitutes: 26 Arthur Masuaku, 27 Albian Ajeti

Scorer: 23 Issa Diop