RIGHT MOVE
Wolverhampton 1 West Ham 0
Craig Dawson is out house hunting, though it’s a smart guess that he will have the radio on in the car. But just who will he want to win this afternoon? Nothing is signed yet, so the West Ham song should still be worming its way around his head. Awesome Dawson!
There is a curious moment on the way to my seat when I pass a familiar cherubim face in the corridor. It’s only when I enter the gents that I realise it was (Sir) Gavin Williamson, MP for South Staffordshire since 2010. Some local dim sum, obviously. If only I’d realised sooner then I might have kicked his sorry sacked shins before he had the chance to scuttle off back to his seat in the Ministry without a Portcullis.
The flame throwers around the touchline burn up enough fuel in the ten minutes before kick off to keep a local three-bedroomed terraced house warm for a month. Antonio and Paquetá need to dispense with their gloves in this heat. ‘Hi Ho, Wolverhampton,’ rings around the ground in the week of Jeff Beck’s passing. Perhaps he was a West Ham fan and can influence the game from his studio in the sky. It’s no secret just how much he hated that song, even though the royalties will continue to dribble in post mortem.
Soufal and Ogbonna get their wires crossed in an early Wolves’ attack, but the corner proves flakey. Fornals is dynamic in the early minutes, confounding Moyes’ decision not to start him every week. Bowen is the first on target for the Hammers, from a Coufal cross, but José Sá deals with the low finish comfortably. At the other end Nunes curls a decent effort towards the corner, but Fabianski fields it with a low dive.
Souček is king of the blockers in the first quarter of an hour, keeping Fabianski from unnecessarily warming his hands. Hammers are playing a back four of Cresswell, Ogbonna, Aguerd and Coufal. It’s a slightly shaky set up early on. The battle of the number 11s is intriguing, with Paquetá and Hee-Chan the early playmakers for each side, but it’s still goalless on the half hour.
It’s Declan Rice’s 24th birthday this afternoon, and he is managing to keep the lid on Wolves each time they break, as West Ham move more and more towards controlling the game. Coufal now has the first clear cut chance on 31 minutes when Bowen’s shot is beaten out to him, but he fails to lift his response, which is also blocked on the line and the ball cleared to safely. Bowen is a live wire this afternoon and looks to be back at his best, hitting the line and cutting in for shots whenever he gets the chance.
Coutinho (why the missing ‘i’) hits a clever corner spooned to the edge of the area but the captain Neves wallops it over instead of controlling the shot, despite being unchallenged.
Everton take the lead at Goodison through Amadou Onana and West Ham slip silently back to 17th, with Bournemouth still to play. Now a brilliant goalbound effort from Podence is expertly chested away for a corner by Aguerd. All in all, a decent half for the Hammers and if they can grab a point they may well still be out of the drop zone by the end of the day.
But the tease of the short-lived joy. From West Ham’s first corner early in the second half, Wolves break and Nunes’ ball in is only half cleared by Cresswell to Podence who fires into the corner from fifteen yards. Less than an hour gone and Hammers are behind. Thankfully Southampton have equalised at Everton through Ward-Prowse, but West Ham are alongside them in nineteenth position.
Benrahma now steps into the arena, and not before time, replacing ‘60 minute Souček’ in the hope of securing a point. Anything less has now become unthinkable. Within three minutes, Benrahma has beaten three Wolves’ defenders on the left but his cross is flicked wide by Antonio. Now the arrival of Rayan Aït-Nouri and Raúl Jiménez. It isn’t getting any better. Traoré, a man whose shorts are pulled up just below his nipples, and who possesses the identical build to Michail Antonio, is getting even less pitch time these days since his heady main man pre-Covid days.
The game has gone to sleep after all the substitutions, but suddenly Wolves hit the crossbar and post in quick succession, only for the excitement to be abated by a late offside flag. ‘Come on Wanderers!’ the crowd yell. Scamacca is on for Fornals. Paquetá tries to cushion a header into the path of Bowen but gets too much on it.
Scamacca robs Collins, but though he tees up Benrahma, the shot is weak and easily telegraphed by Sá. Six minutes added time. Will that be enough for an equaliser? Sadly no. West Ham have had so much of the game but little to show for it except a drop into the bottom three.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 27 Nayef Aguerd, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 8 Pablo Fornals, 28 Tomas Souček, 41 Declan Rice (captain), 11 Lucas Paquetá, 9 Michail Antonio, 20 Jarrod Bowen
Substitutes: 22 Saïd Benrahma, 7 Gianluca Scamacca
