WHO PUT THE BALL IN THE WEST HAM NET?
Fulham 5 West Ham 0
The answer to that question, as made quite clear by the Fulham fans, who also enjoyed a 5-0 victory over Nottingham Forest on Tuesday, is ‘half the fucking team did!’ So where did it all go wrong for West Ham on Sunday? Novovirus? Boats full of fans getting caught under the bridge at Hammersmith before the game? Fulham playing some scintillating football? Take your pick.
I became interested, some time after the thrashing at the hands of the cottagers, in how we have traditionally fared after any of our many excellent victories over Tottingham. As you’ll imagine, I was in search of any pattern I could find to explain why David Moyes’ Hammers’ team had conceded five for the first time in all his years of managing them. I was unable to find one.
But it is a fact that Moyes does not toy with the team. Absolutely never. So why are Cresswell and Fornals suddenly starting, and why is Álvarez absent? Presented with no explanation at kick off for these three anomalies is an unsettling and unexpected revelation that doesn’t augur well for the events in the game ahead.
Fulham have over the years generally been the team to play if you are after points, or in a competitive cup final, though the last point may prove a slight anomaly, built as it is on limited data. This afternoon however sees West Ham playing just 72 hours after the Spurs’ fixture, with Spurs having played on Wednesday and having had an extra day off. Will that make any difference? It probably shouldn’t, but it’s always a handy excuse to have up the sleeve.
West Ham start well, and are knocking the ball about with some confidence, the Coufal-Kudus connect from Thursday night making some early inroads down the right. Fulham, however, have other ideas this afternoon, and are not to be put off by fans singing ad nauseam how they know that they are champions off Europe.
Last season’s win here was probably the most significant of Moyes’ away victories in the league, achieved brilliantly without a single accurate shot on goal, the winner coming from a deflected own goal.
West Ham win a free kick in the first five minutes of the game , offering a shooting distance opportunity for James Ward-Prowse, but although his effort is on target, Bernd Leno punches it away to safety. Within a quarter of an hour, Paulinho’s cross with pace is steered into the back of the net by Jiminez. Five minutes later and Fulham are two ahead, Willian slotting home after a weak clearance. Coufal than fashions a brilliant cross to create a genuine opportunity for Bowen, who uncharacteristically fluffs the chance to narrow the gap to 2-1. And within a minute Fulham have a third, Coufal deflecting Tosin’s header out of the reach of Fabianski’s dive. It’s been a while since West Ham conceded three in a first half of a game, especially without reply.
The second half offers just more of the same, first Harry Wilson hitting a fourth before the first hour of the game is up, and then a fifth a minute from time from Vinicius. Fulham beat Forest 5-0 in the week, so they’ve boosted their goal difference by ten in two matches. West Ham look to have re-invented a meaning for the term ‘shell-shocked’.
All that’s left at the end of the game is the mental list of the five different scorers of the Fulham goals, each of which is well executed and easy on the eye. The rest has to be forgotten as they still face SC Freiburg on Thursday for top place in their Europa League group.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 4 Kurt Zouma (captain), 27 Nayef Aguerd, 7 James Ward-Prowse, 8 Pablo Fornals, 11 Lucas Paquetá, 14 Mohammed Kudus, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 28 Tomas Souček
Substitutes: 33 Emerson, 15 Konstantinos Mavropanos
