BLADES SHARPENED
Sheffield United 2 West Ham 2
The opportunity to bounce back after the shock cup defeat at Championship mid-tablers Bristol City cannot come quickly enough. A journey to bottom of the table Sheffield United isn’t the ideal fixture though. Offering more skin than banana, this one looks like a potential fruit fight.
West Ham have Bowen back, but Paquetá, Álvarez, Aguerd and Kudus are still missing from the preferred eleven, so scoring may prove less straightforward than the side have found it so far this season. Sheffield United have also somehow persuaded 24 year old Ben Brereton Diaz to don his hippy locks for them rather than fight for a place in Villareal’s team from La Liga. Why would he do that? He is from Chile, FFS, not from some storm-laden wind chill-factored nightmare Northern UK town. I’ve already put his name on the scoresheet, though.
The journey to Sheffield for any games starting at 2pm, if you plan it right, requires you to only be in the city for the duration of the game and, at the most, a further 67 minutes. Providing the trains are on time, and you have onboard liquid refreshment and sufficient reading material, the whole escapade can seem like a journey in the tardis. What is harder to plan for is the result.
Danny Ings is making another of those starts up front where fans pray for a decent performance, maybe even a goal. In that endeavour he is joined this afternoon by Maxwel Cornet, still to score for the Hammers after a season and a half in the squad. (though technically should have had his first goal at Stamford Bridge last season).
It’s all a bit scrappy in the first half, but things start to look up after a mazy run from Ings and a deflected shot into the path of Cornet, who fires West Ham into the lead after 28 minutes. This goal is all the more enjoyable as it has been orchestrated and finished by the NSD duo. (not so deadly)
Sadly the Hammers can’t hold out to take a first half lead into the changing room, and after some woeful marking, yes, it’s Ben Brereton (‘Hippy Diaz’ to you and me) who fires home the equaliser in front of the Hammers’ disbelieving fans. How did that happen? Don’t ask stupid questions.
The fifteen half-time minutes in away games this season have generally been filled with a combination of hope and disdain. Remember Spurs? You just never know what West Ham side will turn up for the second half. Only one thing is certain. Whatever happens, there will be no substitutions.
West Ham seem strangely more resolute, more organised in the second half. But it counts for very little as joy in the final third continues to prove elusive. Until David Moyes takes off Maxwel Cornet in the 70th minute, and replaces him with… Ben Johnson. Yes, you heard me right. A defender comes on for the striker who has scored our only goal so far. The Hammers’ twitterXati go into overdrive. What is he doing?
Five minutes later, the brain-cell challenged fans amongst us have worked out that Johnson has been put on as a kind of midfield engine with pace, to stoke things up. And guess what? It’s working! Bowen heads right and Ings left as a two-pronged attack, and it’s Ings whose mazy run (yes, I use that word again to describe something Danny Ings did) leads to him being floored in the area by a late tackle from Gustavo ‘Hammer’ Hamer, and Ward-Prowse slots the penalty home to restore the lead.
And that’s the way things stay until injury time, with Johnson and Ings looking better and better as the match progresses towards an almost certain three points and a return to winning ways for David Moyesiah’s West Ham United on tour.
Then the referee announces that there will be six minutes of injury time. In the third of these, Rhian Brewster, the Liverpool reject as he has been perhaps unfairly christened, times a pre-meditated two-footed kung fu kick at Emerson, who rolls spectacularly across the pitch from the blow. The referee, Michael Salisbury, who has up to now has had a fairly innocuous match, reaches for a red card but pulls out a yellow. Or at least that has to be what has happened. Maybe he has the cards in the wrong pockets. Whatever the reason for the clear error, VAR whispers gently in his ear, and after wandering across to his personal display screen, rescinds the yellow for a red. Vladimir Coufal, who has been in the ref’s ear about the challenge, gets a yellow for his pains, which seems a bit harsh.
The four minutes that this all takes drags the game on towards the hundred minute mark.
West Ham have a minute or two with eleven against ten to look for a third, when Coufal misstimes a tackle and steps on James McAtee’s foot as it passes him. And gets a red card, taken, this time, from the ref’s left pocket. Coufal’s smile transcends the ironic.
There is more to come. Following the free kick and the glut of raised expectations, a short passage of play ensues during which McAtee floats in a ball to the far post, but before he can collect, Areola is clattered by the elbow of Oliver McBurnie, and sent flying.
Without so much as a VAR your leave, the ref points to the spot. Is he positioning West Ham’s free kick away from the six yard box? The fuck is he. He’s only given Sheffield United a penalty. Blind and one-pocketed? Bribed? Useless? I guess we’ll never know. Not if we ignore the evidence of our own eyes, we won’t. Areola has a split lip and is swallowing blood. He eventually has to be substituted for Lucasz Fabianski. Who is better at saving penalties. But who has just been chomping on a steak pie after downing two blackberry flavoured power bars, and whose mind is elsewhere, poised at minute one hundred to catch the latest episode of Netfixes ‘Krakow, My Part In Her Downfall’.
When McBurnie finally steps up to take the penalty, there are 103 minutes on the clock. Perhaps the referee has an each way on the latest ever goal scored in a Premier League game… For that is what this will be. McBurnie steadies himself as he watches Areola head down the tunnel to get his face fixed, and slots the ball beyond Fabianski. To be fair, it is a decent penalty. Even though it wasn’t a penalty.
But what’s this? Hammers have kicked off and are already mounting an attack to scupper the ref’s bet. And as he watches he’s tapping his pocket to make sure he’s still got the bookies’ receipt in it. Then as Johnson’s cross comes over, Ahmedhodzic, with his arms wrapped around Bowen like he’s attempting some judo throw, pulls the striker to the ground.
Thank God. Ward-Prowse will secure the points with his second spot kick of the game…
WTF? Salisbury’s given a handball against Bowen. Jesus H. Christ on an Electric Scooter. And just as it’s about to kick off, as Sheffield United should be doing again, the Salisbury poisoner blows his whistle for the final time this afternoon.
I am reminded of the denied Snodgrass equaliser here on January 11th 2020, four years ago, because of a VAR verdict on Declan Rice for a handball, and for the fact that the scorer of the winning goal that afternoon was none other than… Oli McBurnie. That win that day took Sheffield United to fifth in the PL table.
West Ham are still sixth this afternoon and Sheffield United are adrift at the bottom on just ten points. There is that.
23 Alphonse Areola, 4 Kurt Zouma (captain), 5 Vladimir Coufal, 33 Emerson, 15 Konstantinos Mavropanos, 8 Pablo Fornals, 7 James Ward-Prowse, 28 Tomas Souček, 14 Maxwel Cornet, 18 Danny Ings, 20 Jarrod Bowen
Substitutes: 2 Ben Johnson, 45 Divin Mubama, 1 Lucasz Fabianski
Goalscorers: Maxwel Cornet (28), James Ward-Prowse (79, penalty)
Worst Referee in the Current Known Universe: Michael Salisbury
