VILLA KILLAS
Aston Villa 1 West Ham 4
A good time to play Aston Villa on the back of three successive defeats? Perhaps, but there are few sides that the Hammers would fear on current form. Villa have dropped their captain (Tyrone Mings), never a good sign, especially for a player for whom the auto correct function on my phone prefers to rename Throne Minus. Then there is their number ten signing from Norwich, Emiliano Buendía Stati, who regular readers of this column will remember featuring in excoriating prose from a previous Hammers game v Norwich that ended up 4-0 back in Behind Closed Doors days. Looks like a cat with more than one life.
West Ham take an early lead through the left foot of right back Ben Johnson, starting for only the third time in the PL and keeping the now fit Vladimir Coufal on the bench. Aston Villa keeper Emiliano Martinez looks to have been temporarily blinded as the ball passes him, evidenced by a slice of lip-reading which reveals his declaration to his puzzled defenders, ‘I didn’t see it.’ Hammers then endeavour to add to their lead, but Polish defender Mattio Cashivic acrobatically blocks two successive goalbound shots by Jarrod Bowen.
Buendia’s timely run and cross then sets up Ollie Watkins for an unexpected equaliser on 34 minutes, on one of Villa’s rare forays into the West Ham half. Just when the cynics in the crowd start to believe the season might be coming apart at the seams, Declan Rice restores Hammers’ lead with a low right-footed shot with a similar bobbling trajectory to that of Johnson’s, half an hour earlier.
Villa enjoyed that lead for a mere three minutes.
The second half opens with an intriguing passage of play that sees first Fornals poleaxed by a right elbow from Kortney Hause and then Bowen floored by Ezri Konza as he prepares to take the loose ball through one on one into the area. Konza is booked, and when the referee Chris Kavanagh is given a VAR opportunity to send off either one of two of the defenders, he goes for Konza. Villa are gone, or should be. A long throw by Cashcou is turned out for McGinn, whose cross is headed onto the bar by Ollie Watkins, only failing to score thanks to a finger-tip save from Fabianski.
It’s the last chance for Villa in every sense when Lanzini comes on for Benrahma to generate more pace up front. On the counter Bowen hits in a shot that Martinez can only parry into the path of Fornals, and it’s 3–1. The final goal that takes Hammers to four on the road again is scored when Antonio finds Lanzini in the area whose unselfish pass to Bowen at the corner of the six yard box is clinically dispatched.
Hammers are now fourth in the Premier League, only denied third place on goal difference from Manchester City. And with second-placed Liverpool to come this time next week, these are wonderful days for David Moyes’ West Ham.
1 Lucasz Fabiański, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 4 Kurt Zouma, 31 Ben Johnson, 41 Declan Rice (c), 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 28 Tomas Souček,, 8 Pablo Fornals, 9 Michail Antonio, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 22 Saïd Benrahma
Substitutes: 10 Manuel Lanzini, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 11 Nicola Vlasic
Goalscorers: Ben Johnson, Declan Rice, Pablo Fornals, Jarrod Bowen
