FIVE GO IN THE NET
West Ham 1 Newcastle United 5
Of West Ham’s three Premier League games in this calendar week, this was always the one that the Hammers were going to lose. Eddie Howe’s Saudi-funded side have cash mattresses under every potential removed hand to field off adversity, and West Ham’s performance against Southampton last Sunday, despite yielding three precious points, made the likelihood of anything other than humiliation from tonight’s fixture a distant and unlikely dream.
First there is the side chosen to take on tonight’s challenge. How many surprises do you think it might contain? Maximum points for those who said, in a dry and cynical baritone, ‘None’. A start that offers the fans Ings and Antonio still evades the reality of a survival mentality, and three of the back four are the prescribed and contractually unchangeable row of signings since the end of last year’s successes. There is no Coufal, no Cresswell, and of course no Dawson.
West Ham start the game in 14th position, just a point off the relegation places but with a game in hand, and this is that game. And it starts with promise, a wide run from Bowen down the right whose cross is struck against his own post by Bruno Guimarães and as the ball comes out Declan Rice arrives perfectly, but leans slightly back and balloons it over the bar.
Unfortunately that’s it for the first half, Callum Wilson heading Newcastle into a sixth minute lead from Allan Saint-Maximin’s pinpoint perfect cross. Then Joelinton finds himself in acres of space, before rounding Fabianski to make it two inside the first quarter of an hour. Kurt Zouma then arrives fashionably late for Jarrod Bowen’s far post corner at the end of the first half to power his header home, lessening Newcastle’s lead, and giving David Moyes the chance to fashion a credible half-time talk to motivate his beleaguered Hammers.
The second half is less than a minute old when Jacob Murphy dispossesses the lallygagging Nayef Aguerd at the edge of the area and sets up Wilson for a tap in for his second, restoring Newcastle’s two goal advantage. The speed of the goal seems to suck all hope out of the Hammers, and it doesn’t help that captain Declan Rice is having an unusually poor game. If there was any stirring of a distant late comeback, it is floored when Fabianski races off his line to dispossess substitute Alexander Isak from Anthony Gordon’s hopeful through ball, but misses his kick, leaving the Newcastle striker with a simple tap in. Worse is to come in the last minute when Joelinton, wide on the left, hits a hopeful shot across Fabianski’s goal which nestles unexpectedly in the corner of the net to make it 5-1.
That makes a goal difference now of -13 as West Ham move into April. A trip to Fulham awaits at the weekend, and then the quarter-finals of the Europa Conference League against KAA Gent. David Moyes’ side, with a few weeks left of the season, have won just one game away from home. The recent home wins over Nottingham Forest and Southampton now seem like tiny flashes of light in an overwhelmingly dark season.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 33 Emerson, 4 Kurt Zouma, 24 Thilo Kehrer, 41 Declan Rice (captain), 27 Nayef Aguerd, 28 Tomas Souček, 11 Lucas Paquetá, 9 Michail Antonio, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 22 Saïd Benrahma
Substitutes: 5 Vladimir Coufal, 12 Flynn Downes, 18 Danny Ings, 14 Maxwell Cornet
Goalscorer: Kurt Zouma
