REVENGE – A DISH BEST SERVED ON ICE
Anderlecht 0 West Ham 1
Revenge. Two syllables, but a word in the Eintracht Frankfurt vocabulary since earlier this year. Tonight it’s West Ham’s turn.
A second successive adventure in a European competition, and whaddya ya know, a second successive portion of the Belgians at the group stage. Slightly more central (west Brussels), and a team we’ve played before (albeit 46 years ago), but still a place we can get to without the need to leave the ground.
The ground itself is the best part of an hour’s walk from the city centre, through some areas with a Middle Eastern familiarity, offering a fabulous array of seismic vegetables, exotic coffees and impossibly delicious smelling street food. Once we’d got through this, we found a gathering of Hammers on a street corner, their table festooned with glasses of beer, some empty and others at various stages of decanter, and some anonymous glass bowls of savoury shelled peanuts.
The game is an early kick off, allowing the chance of some food afterwards, or a simple flagon of 13.5% proof Belgian lager to drown our sorrows. Or sorrow. Here we are warned about the dangers of spontaneous theft from the locals; that is we’re warned by the locals about theft from the locals. Whether the two groups were related we never get to find out, as the local constabulary moves them on before they can develop their problematic narrative any further.
Anderlecht, the purple-kitted opposition; their unexpected nickname: Les Mauves. The last time they won anything was the Belgian League in 2016-17, which was also West Ham’s first season in their new London Stadium home. They beat West Ham in the final of the European Cup-Winners Cup in 1976 and won it again two years later, beating Austria Wien in the final. UEFA ditched the competition the following year, as Anderlecht had also appeared in the 1977 final, losing that year to Hamburg SV. It was getting boring having them as annual finalists.
It’s unlikely however that the European Conference League will be ditched at the end of what is only its second year; first because Anderlecht haven’t been in a final yet, and second because that would just be stupid.
The novelty of a venue that is closer in travelling time than Manchester United, and cheaper too, is that we can can up for the game on the day and return promptly after breakfast. You might argue that it doesn’t feel particularly exotic or even dangerous, but you’d be wrong. This European tour stuff is something we are happy to be enjoying for a second successive season, and I have already Murrayed our chances by booking a hotel for the week of the final in Prague, next June.
We look speculatively with wizened eyes at the team Moyes has picked for this evening’s game. Rice, Paquetá and Scamacca are all on the bench, with Ogbonna sporting the captain’s armband, Johnson returning and Downes making yet another appearance.
The transparency of the tactics doesn’t make them any less apposite, and the side set about constructing a groove to keep ‘Les Mauves’ at arm’s length. Both Antonio and then Benrahma get into good positions but pansy their chances. Downes proves he can carry the role of the team engine, tackling both elegantly and fiercely, and proving Ogbonna’s first choice of pass out through defence. Coufal looks a little more established in his right back position while Johnson is back to efficient distributor and link choice behind the midfield.
The Anderlecht fan on our right informs us that the Belgians are currently tenth in their domestic league, and the home crowd have been getting on their backs if they haven’t scored in the first fifteen minutes. Which they rarely, if ever, do. Which is why they get on their backs.
After fifteen goalless minutes the home crowd start getting on their backs. It was always going to happen. Sometimes Areola looks as though he will never be beaten, and tonight he is generating that vibe, in spite of a few slightly unco-ordinated moments in the defence. The focus is on Benrahma for most of the first half, but the Algerian Alessandro Del Piero is unfortunately proving a little more Pierrot than Piero tonight. He could have scored three by half time. But he hasn’t.
Hammers have been given barely a thousand seats in this 21,500 capacity stadium, but by the end of the half the sounds issuing from each set of supporters seems not to be reflecting the ratio it should do in volume. We all have our theories about how Moyes is going to change it in the second half as the teams go in for the break.
Predictability is only to be criticised if it yields disappointments. Tonight, the job is well done, if a tad prosaic. Benrahma, Antonio and Lanzini make way for Paquetá, Scamacca and Rice, early in the second half.
There are three incidents in the ensuing half worthy of remark. The first is an early slightly speculative long ball from Rice, hunting out Paquetá, wide on the right. The ball initially seems to have been a little over hit, but Paquetá brings it down from his airborne position with the back of his angled feet, and rotates his body perfectly to progress goalwards with the ball in front of his advancing steps. Cresswell laughs audibly at the audacity from the bench below us.
The second is the goal. Again the ball is hit over from the left, and the stooping Coufal heads back to Paquetá, who controls and flicks the ball between the last two defenders where Scamacca has suddenly appeared, his run timed perfectly. And he rolls his right foot over the ball and into the back of the Anderlecht net, past Hendrik Van Crombrugge, club captain and goalkeeper.
The third is a break from the hosts, just minutes from time, where a measured cross from the right by the industrious Murillo evades Johnson and Ogbonna to find Fabio Silva, whose powerful downward header is expertly saved on the line by Areola, and scrambled away to safety.
Job done, and this against a side who have yet to concede a goal in the tournament. Moyes can be forgiven for cracking a knowing smile as he applauds his team off to the dressing room. Three group games, all three in the group played and beaten, nine points from nine. A mere point in next Thursday’s home fixture against tonight’s opponents will almost certainly guarantee winning the group and claiming a subsequent bye through to the last sixteen.
13 Alphonse Areola, 2 Ben Johnson, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 12 Flynn Downes, 15 Craig Dawson, 21 Angelo Ogbonna (captain), 33 Emerson, 10 Manuel Lanzini, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 22 Saïd Benrahma, 9 Michail Antonio
Substitutes: 11 Lucas Paquetá, 7 Gianluca Scamacca, 41 Declan Rice
Goalscorer: Gianluca Scamacca
