THE PENALTY FOR FAILURE
West Ham 2 Blackburn Rovers 2 *
(*Blackburn win 10-9 on penalties)
Some are seeing this as David Moyes’ last chance to win a domestic trophy. Others are keen to suspend judgement. Many think Hammers have become a side dependent on cup success to wring something out of an otherwise disappointing season. And we are only in early November.
With Coventry, Downes, Ogbonna and Lanzini starting, this is a chance for Hammers would-be first teasers to show what they are capable of. And it is a misguided long throw from Ogbonna that Antonio fails to pick up cleanly that sets Blackburn up on their first genuine attack. Tayo Edun, picking the ball up on the halfway line, feeds Jack Vale who slots easily past Areola and beyond Aguerd’s vainglorious arm, outstretched for a non-existent offside. A goal down to the travelling Championship side after just six minutes.
Blackburn compete without much difficulty until just before half time when a long ball from Coufal sees Antonio wrestling off the challenge of Clinton Mola and square the ball straight to Carter, but instead of clearing with his outstretched leg, the ball hits his standing foot and finds Fornals who lashes home a grateful equaliser to keep the sides level at half time. Fornals had hit just a single goal in 33 games, but has now hit three in a week.
The next five minutes suggest that Hammers may well be entering an unwanted run of self-imposed defeats, as Coventry’s exquisitely daft and unnecessary back pass gifts Dolan Markanday with a chance to restore Blackburn’s lead, denied by Aguerd’s vigilant block on the line.
In the second half Hammers up their game and force a host of corners, one of which Antonio manages to slam against the post he was leaning against a few seconds earlier, when it might have been easier to try to blow the ball in from there.
Finally Hammers achieve the reward they imagine will clinch the game and send them into the next round after Aguerd’s long ball isn’t cleared sufficiently well, and Antonio fires home from just inside the area.
Despite the fact that Blackburn are the only side in the league not to have drawn a single game, they force home an 85th minute equaliser after Downes loses a loose ball to Szmodics, whose pass to his substitute partner Brereton Diaz is dispatched mercilessly into the top corner of Areola’s net.
And so to penalties. Hammers once beat Blackburn at Ewood Park in the days of Johnny Hartson. These, though, are the days of Hammers’ captains missing penalties, and taking West Ham’s tenth, Ogbonna hits the underside of the bar and not the target, so it’s a second defeat in a week and a reminder of the joys of penalties to come for England in Qatar, a few weeks hence.
13 Alphonse Ariola, 2 Ben Johnson, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 8 Pablo Fornals, 21 Angelo Ogbonna (captain), 27 Nayef Aguerd, 33 Emerson, 12 Flynn Downes, 10 Manuel Lanzini, 32 Conor Coventry, 9 Michail Antonio
Substitutes: 7 Gianluca Scamacca, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 22 Saïd Benrahma, 3 Aaron Cresswell
Goalscorers: Pablo Fornals, Michail Antonio
