WE ALL LOVE LEEDS
West Ham 2 Leeds United 3
Remember the old one about how you never get the same result when you play the same team twice in a week? If was certainly hard to believe when the Leeds’ starting line-up for this Premier League fixture was announced at 12.45. Kurt Zouma was supposedly almost recovered from his early December injury, but David Moyes decided on this being an outing too far for his ex-Chelsea stalwart, who is not even included in the squad for the game.
Hammers begin well, and look to have plenty of time on the ball to spread passes around the pitch, Bowen looking to continue where he left off last Sunday and this Wednesday. But it’s Leeds who open the scoring in the tenth minute when Jack Harrison finishes an opportunity provided for him by Forshaw, turning the loose ball effortlessly into the bottom corner of Fabianki’s net.
The surprised looks from Hammers’ players and sudden silence from the crowd makes it quite clear how unexpected this goal is. West Ham do finally get level however, Bowen heading Cresswell’s corner past Meslier. But they’re looking tired, Diop and Dawson getting regularly caught out of position, and looking slow against a Leeds’ side who haven’t played since their last game here in the cup on Sunday. Antonio is strong out on the left, but seems a little short on energy, and West Ham struggle to create chances. So much so that four minutes later Leeds regain the lead, Harrison scoring his second when he breasts Ayling’s goalbound header over the line. Minutes later James misses a great chance to put Leeds 3-1 up before half time.
West Ham enter the second half in a more sprightly state and Fornals puts them level seven minutes in with only their second accurate shot on goal of the match. The topsy turvey nature of the game is again revealed when Raphinha hits a pass through the Hammers’ defence to find Harrison who chips superbly over Fabianski and Leeds are in front again. This time he is scoring in front of his own fans, though not so many this week. A minute later Raphinha hits the post from a free kick with Fabianski beaten. Then they hit a fourth on the break as West Ham commit to grab an equaliser. Thankfully VAR leaps into action in our defence to rule it out and offer up an exciting finale.
Hammers get one last chance in injury time when Cresswell takes a free kick quickly and Antonio feeds a cross in that Bowen decides to chest and not head over. How has the master goal chef missed that one? Human after all. Frustration, but Leeds were better, despite being majorly short on players. So again West Ham have managed to score twice at home in a game that has ultimately ended up in defeat.
Meanwhile, Arsenal have managed to get their game against Tottenham postponed because they have players injured and at the African Nations. Oh yeah, and ONE player with Covid. What bullshit is that? Should they buy any players in the January transfer window, they should be banned from playing in the rescheduled fixtures. Actually, just cancel the games and take the points of them for arrogance. It would be deserved.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 41 Declan Rice (c), 15 Craig Dawson, 23 Issa Diop, 8 Pablo Fornals, 10 Manuel Lanzini, 11 Nikola Vlašić, 9 Michail Antonio, 20 Jarrod Bowen
Substitutes: 23 Arthur Masuaku, 7 Andriy Yarmolenko, 63 Sonny Perkins
Goalscorers: Jarrod Bowen, Pablo Fornals
