SAME SHOW SAME ENDING
Manchester United 3 West Ham 1
It’s the hope that fills you. It’s the hope that kills you. It’s the hope that bills you. So how much is this evening’s game going to affect West Ham fans for the rest of the week? I have not been as excited as I should be by the reserve team that United have put out tonight. The usual suspects are on the bench and will be called on to stage a late win if things are going wrong. We already know that.
Confidence in the West Ham players is low at the moment, both from the fans and in the players themselves. The 4-0 weekend victory over Nottingham Forest, the semi-final league cup team that could have been playing Man United if Newcastle hadn’t beaten them, was imbued with relief ad invariably hope, but the spearhead of that victory is cup-tied this evening, having captained Villa in their home cup 1-2 reverse to second Division Stevenage back in January.
West Ham begin the game well, keeping possession once won, and distributing well. The tangerine dream away kit, yet to yield a win in the league, has a midweek cup outing tonight. The fifth round of the UK’s greatest domestic cup competition is another rescheduling victim of the Qatari World Cup, straight-jacketed into its temporarily midweek position. The quality sides have almost all been eliminated from the competition, so this is a huge opportunity for West Ham to get their name on a trophy they last decorated in 1980. Now I’ve outed that revelation it is already beginning to feel like the pre-match point everyone was trying to avoid. After just twenty minutes Michail Antonio finds himself one on one with de Gea, but lacking the confidence of old takes too long with the shot and the keeper is able to make a telling block to turn it away for a corner. It feels already like that might be a moment we will be dwelling on later in the game.
And yet early in the second half an unexpected light appears from the darkness of east London inertia as Benrahma, finally stealing a yard from the otherwise alert United defenders, darts towards goal and lets fly with the outside of his boot to send a thunderbolt of a shot past de Gea into the corner of the net.
It will now be West Ham’s unenviable task to defend this unexpected lead for another 36 minutes, but David Moyes can at least enjoy a momentary celebration at the ground where he must have once felt his future success coming into bright focus.
Watching Aguerd is remembering the genius of Rio Ferdinand in a West Ham shirt. Defensively he was almost always on top of his game, anticipating how strikers would operate and cutting them off before they did. His distribution was excellent, and when he joined the attack he was as likely to find the back of the net as some of the strikers from that era. Here’s the but. Concentration. Perhaps it is a facet of genius that there are invariably microscopic flaws that are magnified by their consequences. This evening Aguerd joins those rare ranks. An unfortunate own goal, some poorly focused distribution and narcolepsy in the middle of the park. Three errors, three goals. Garnacho and Fred sealing the victory with the second and third goals both scored in injury time. I predict that it will be (thankfully) a while before we see any more errors like these from the magnificent Moroccan.
As for the Hammers, all that lies ahead is to save themselves from the unthinkable scourge of relegation, secure a mid table finish and perhaps advance further in the Europa Conference League. It feels like scant reward after some excellent early season signings and the hope that is certainly killing most of us now.
13 Alphonse Ariola, 2 Ben Johnson, 3 Emerson, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 41 Declan Rice (captain), 27 Nayef Aguerd, 28 Tomas Souček, 8 Pablo Fornals, 11 Lucas Paquetá, 22 Saïd Benrahma, 9 Michail Antonio
Substitutes: 7 Gianluca Scamacca, 20 Jarrod Bowen
Goalscorer: Saïd Benrahma
