THE SHOCK OF THE FEW
West Ham 0 Wolverhampton Wanderers 2
Saturday 20th June 2020
On current form, even with an unexpected gap of over a hundred days since their last game, this result was not unexpected. Wolves are a force to be reckoned with this season under Nuno Espírito Santo, and Adama Traoré an inspirational substitute to have as part of your armoury. So was this just a temporary disappointment? Can Moyes’ troops reconnoitre for their forthcoming challenges against lesser opposition to save their Premier League status?
I was one of the few hundred who arrived at London Stadium, the home of the Hammers, on June 20th 2020, in awe of the afternoon ahead. It was a game that ordinarily would have been attended by 60,000 boisterous fans, mouthing pleading chants for East End redemption, spurred on by Vera Lynn’s stirring rendition of ‘Bubbles’ just before kick off. Instead, banks of seats, blanketed by throws baying out ‘Pretty Bubbles In The Air’ and ‘West Ham Till I Die’ replaced the cheers and chants with their encouraging but soundless words. A minute’s silence for those who had fallen victims to the biblical pandemic, the fifteen second taking a knee after the referee’s whistle by players in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, both offered a respectful acknowledgement of the unparalleled nature of the last few merciless weeks in the UK and the world.
Schooled in the behind closed doors substance of the new game, focusing on the football on the pitch was not nearly as problematic as it would have been a few weeks ago. Brighton had secured an earlier injury time win over Arsenal, and Bournemouth would have the chance of securing three points later on against Crystal Palace. Only three points would ensure West Ham were clear of the drop zone by the end of the day.
Moyes was without Haller and Ogbonna but had Soucek and the transfer-speculation Ngakia in his starting eleven.
The first ten minutes were tortuous with Hammers failing to get into the Wolves’ half for more than a few seconds at a time, but in the thirteenth minute a long pass from Noble found Fornals clear with the ball dropping favourably for a sighter of Patricio and the gaping net behind him, but unbridled power won over placement and the ball was soon heading up into the empty stands behind the goal. It was to be the only genuine chance of the half for West Ham, and they trundled off exhausted, but still level at half-time.
For Wolves, it looked throughout like a perfectly-executed plan. On the hour, Nuno brought on Traoré and Neto for Jota and Dendoncker, and his side began to push forward. Jiminez put Wolves ahead eight minutes later with an unmarked header from Traoré’s tantalising cross, and then Neto found the back of the net with a vicious volley from the edge of the box to dispatch Doherty’s byline delivery.
Moyes’ side could offer little on the day in response, despite the late arrival of Lanzini and Yarmolenko, players whose appearances off the bench have made a difference in the past. The strange present is where we now reside though, and as I placed my face mask back over my mouth and headed towards the car park, I wondered what the return of Haller, scorer in two friendlies before the game but sidelined with a hip injury, might offer.
The later lifeline of Palace’s win at Bournemouth kept West Ham out of the bottom three by the end of the day, but they probably need another thirteen points from their last eight games, half of which they’ve already amassed from their first thirty.
The only hope is how home advantage seems to count for little in this new mini season we are now entering, and it might well be the ‘away’ fixtures at Newcastle and Norwich that offer the opportunities for the majority of the points necessary for Hammers to avoid relegation. We shall see.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 52 Jeremy Ngakia, 23 Issa Diop, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 8 Felipe Anderson, 28 Tomas Soucek, 17 Jarrod Bowen, 16 Mark Noble (captain), 41 Declan Rice, 18 Pablo Fornals, 30 Michail Antonio
Substitutes: 20 Manuel Lanzini, 7 Andriy Yarmolenko, 24 Ryan Fredericks
