SEASON PETERS OUT
Leicester City 2 West Ham 1
Once it became obvious that West Ham were only going to be relegated if they were docked points for continuing to show an interest in Jesse Lingard, this game was what could politely be termed a ‘dead rubber.’
Okay, so it’s not much of an achievement to be the cannon fodder for a team’s last hoorah before slipping into the Championship just seven years after winning the Premier League, but there you are. We’re West Ham. We are known to occasionally do that schitt.
It is also probably the last time that Declan Rice will don a Hammers’ shirt in a Premier League fixture, so again not a game that you would spend your hard-earned on in pursuit of witnessing an away point of three. Because there are no points heading the way of East London this afternoon. I promise you.
As if to add sauce to my goose’s gander, Harvey Barnes sends Dean Smith’s Leicester City in at half-time with a single goal advantage, scoring in the 34th minute to put Leicester on a potential 34 point haul for the season. Everton are drawing 0-0 at home to Bournemouth, so they will also finish the season with 34 points if things stay that way. Roughly translated, that means a West Ham defeat, should it occur, will send Everton down, as their goal difference is Boris Johnson to Leicester’s Winston Churchill. West Ham have failed to trouble the scorers in either effort or goal opportunities, their minds clearly already in the airport lounge in Prague.
The second half begins with the Leicester fans in full ‘we are staying up!’ voice, the cornucopic stream of blue flags aloft against the blue midlands’ sky. On a rare foray into the Leicester half, West Ham grab a corner from which Johnny Evans comes tragically close to heading into his own net, but for now the tragedy is averted.
Just a few minutes later, in the parallel relegation-obsessed footballing universe that is Goodison Park, Abdoulaye Doucouré has scored a goal that could save an unelevated Everton, yet again, from becoming a pile of Premier League’s last day droppings. Weirdly, this Everton Bournemouth last day fixture is an identical team match to that of 2020-21, when Scott Parker’s team were relegated despite winning the game 3-1. They came back straight away of course, but without him. Sean Dyche may well prove to be the relieved man on this occasion.
just five minutes later in the 62nd minute Wout Faes’ first-ever goal for Leicester, a header from Youri Tielemans’ corner, is only of use to his team if it can somehow be transferred to the back of Everton’s net 80 miles up the M6. Some things are clearly not as likely as others. Pablo Fornals, whose wedding is taking place a couple of days after the Europa Conference League final, takes advantage of the lull in vocal support for Leicester to grab a goal back for the Hammers ten minutes from time…
but with their fate in others’ hands, Leicester play out the last moments of their Premier League life against the background noise of stadium seats slapping into an upright position in preparation for Championship football next season.
1 Lucas Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 23 Thilo Kehrer, 27 Nayef Aguerd, 41 Declan Rice (captain), 11 Lucas Paquetá, 22 Saïd Benrahma, 8 Pablo Fornals, 9 Michail Antonio
Substitutes: 18 Danny Ings, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 10 Manuel Lanzini, 14 Maxwell Cornet
Goalscorer: Pablo Fornals (still single)
