WEST HAM NEVER DO THINGS EASY
West Ham 0 Fulham 2
Results have combined unexpectedly to open a small door of opportunity for the Hammers to climb to 6th position in the Premier League. This, of course, is also therefore a prompt for Moyes to think long and hard about the ensuing return Europa League game against Bayer 04 Leverkusen on Thursday. Jarrod Bowen still has issues with his knee injury against Wolves last weekend, Mavropanos is nursing an injury and though they can play today, Paquetá and Emerson will be missing on Thursday thanks to bookings sustained out in Germany.
When the team is announced there are a few audible sighs from the crowd, in particular the revelation of Danny Ings starting, playing in the hole behind Antonio, one imagines. But then you don’t know who looks great on the training ground. Fulham have never won at London Stadium, and have to trail back 23 years for the last time they won an away league game at West Ham, at Upton Park in 2001.
And yet no one is really interested in this game. Not even the players. Which is clearly absurd, bearing in mind how the league is bending over backwards to accommodate West Ham in their goal of accessing their fourth successive season in Europe. Elimination from the Europa League this Thursday and qualifying for it next season courtesy of achieving sixth position might be preferable to struggling in the Champions League next year.
But the first few minutes of the game still go well as the Hammers create three real chances, first Antonio blazing over from under the bar after a brilliant run from Coufal, then Kudus firing just over after a mazy run, and finally a header across goal by Aguerd that is inches from finding its target.
Then, in the ninth minute, Fulham score with their first attack of the game. And what a terrible goal is is. Mavropanos (who probably shouldn’t be playing) stretches for the long ball passing over his head, and Aguerd, who has lost Pereira, is caught flat-footed from the pass, leaving the Fulham man with a simple tap in. Whether it is the brutalist slam dunk or the against the run of play sucker punch simplicity of the strike, it sucks everything positive out of the Hammers, and they limp on towards half time like a band of marauding punch drunk fighters.
There is still, somewhere back in the faltering imagination of the weary fans, a hope that there may be something left to salvage from this match. But as the second half gets underway, it’s already feeling like a lot of other home games this season. Plenty of potential versus fuck all on the finishing side.
Paquetá knows he’s not playing on Thursday, so it looks as though he feels he might as well start not playing this afternoon. Why wait? Emerson seems to have disappeared, though he is there on the pitch when I look for him. Aguerd seems content to play little one-twos with Mavropanos before passing back to Fabianski. I may not have mentioned that Fabianski, West Ham’s captain this afternoon, has already made three excellent saves, towards the end of the first half.
Paquetá, though he appears to have downed tools, is still at the centre of most of the moves, usually the last man standing before the ball is given away to the opposition. Álvarez is back, but seems confused by his role in the team, oscillating between defending facing his own goal, and playing midfield maestro, whilst still facing his own goal.
Then the killer winner, begun again from a joint dereliction of duty in the middle of the park, and after Awobi is allowed to wander unmarked down the right, his pass across the area finds Pereira who hits his second past Fabianski. There is little to enjoy about the game for West Ham fans, but the players are spared a booing farewell when late in the game substitute Earthy, on for just a few minutes, suffers a sickening late injury that sees him laid out and driven off the playing area with breathing apparatus trailed over his expressionless face. Hammers fans look on, their concerns for now occupying a different arena to those they came to the ground to pursue. The Fulham fans seem oblivious to events on the field, for which they will be serially lambasted later on social media.
On my way back to the station, an old timer with his eyes also on Thursday’s gold, remarks to his friend, ‘West Ham never do things easy.’ I think about Moyes and how so far, throughout his time at West Ham, he has always managed to drag victory out of the fire just when his career here has looked over. You are left concluding that he may have left it a little too late to save it this time.
1 Lucasz Fabianski (captain), 5 Vladimir Coufal, 33 Emerson, 15 Konstantinos Mavropanos, 27 Nayef Aguerd , 7 James Ward-Prowse, 10 Lucas Paquetá, 19 Edson Álvarez, 9 Michail Antonio, 14 Mohammed Kudus, 18 Danny Ings
Substitutes: 2 Ben Johnson, 4 Kurt Zouma, 28 Tomas Souček, 40 George Earthy
