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The Bianca Westwood Column

Many Harry Returns

This is a rush job. It’s going to be what you might call short and sweet. I make no apologies folks…I have had a hectic week. I spent the weekend laid up in bed battling what felt like a rare and severe strain of influenza. It hasn’t been pretty in my house what with the sneezes and the snots. I’ve been keeping Kleenex in business and I had an uncanny likeness for Jim Smith (in a long wig) from blowing my nose so much. But I digress…

I spent Monday in a horizontal position (not in the good way) and I decided to recuperate by watching the first season of The West Wing to which I quickly became addicted. I put off writing my blog, firstly because of my aforementioned addiction, and secondly because I tend to leave things to the last minute. In my defence I don’t like to write my blog too early in the week because of the ever-changing nature of events in football land…plus have you ever watched The West Wing?? Decent.

Tuesday was spent preparing stats and doing my research for Brighton v Cardiff for the Gillette Soccer Special on Tuesday night (good game by the way) so my aim was to spend a bit of time on Wednesday writing a lovely blog for you lovely West Ham fans.

Best laid plans and all that!!

I knew I was due to interview Nathan Dyer at the Liberty stadium that afternoon, so the wonderful Sky travel girl Laura booked me a train from Paddington, giving me simultaneously a peaceful journey and the opportunity to read up on the Swans season, mentally prepare questions, arrive in Swansea at 1pm, do the interview and finally write my blog on the train back to London. Perfect.

No.

Get to Woodford station, no tubes. Have to drive. Lovely. Cut a long story short (well I did say short and sweet) the drive was an 8 hour round trip, the interview went well but now, instead of getting stuck into The West Wing season 2, it’s late and I’m here ranting to you lot about my pitiful few days. Do you feel sorry for me yet? No? Ok!

My mum used to say time and again ‘never put off till tomorrow what could be done today’, which never failed to aggravate me because more often than not it was about cleaning my room, but the fact remains, infuriatingly, as always, she’s right! (I’m super tidy now by the way.) So here we are. For starters I haven’t read any of your comments over the weekend so I’m not sure whether we’re still living in a state of blissful optimism or if we’re moaning about the wheels falling off in the not-too-distant future. I do recall a good many fans on here were predicting an absolute spanking at Old Trafford but I was quietly confident that that wouldn’t happen. And not only did that not happen but in fact, United were actually hanging on for dear life by the end.

I knew we were already dealing with a midfield without Kouyate so I was more than concerned to see Mark Noble out. Plus the fact he’s in my fantasy team so that nugget of information didn’t go down brilliantly. Clearly I feared the worst when we’d conceded two after 22 minutes. It was a bit of a shambles really, caught out twice like that and opened up like a can of sardines. It didn’t bode well. I tweeted as much saying that normal West Ham service had resumed, however, I did secretly hope that we had a bit more about us these days and we would pose some sort of threat for the remainder of the game. I wasn’t disappointed in that respect. After a spot of head tennis Sakho put us in front and you could tell United were vulnerable. We more than held our own and although Rooney dominated the backpages the bylines for us were positive:

~ Diego Poyet showed maturity beyond his years and experience and demonstrated there is a place for him in the midfield when he’s called upon.

~ Diafra Sakho broke a 26 year record by scoring in each of his first four starts. Even the great Leeeee-roy (I still do that in my head when his name is mentioned) Rosenior was happy for him and it gives the player plenty of confidence going forward.

~ We could have nicked it right at the death but for a Nolan forehead and a scarily accurate linesman.

Sidebar – Nolan being back – personally I’m happy with that. I know a few of you on here won’t be enamoured with the prospect of the returning captain but despite the shortcomings highlighted frequently and furiously by West Ham fans, he does tend to pop up with a goal or two at crucial moments. As he gets older and ever-slower I think his role will become more that of an impact substitute. Which he’d be terrific at by the way. You just hope Sam Allardyce picks the best team from the attractive options he now has at his disposal. I guess we’ll see.

~ We showed great character to come back from two goals, we created several chances, playing through the channels we’ve got signings who can hurt opposition with pace, we’re continuing to play it on the deck and we are much, much harder to beat.

~ And finally, we are showing surprising signs of strong self-belief which is novel for us and, with that in mind, I think we could give QPR one hell of a beating. With our team now, the best I’ve seen in a bloody long time, we should take all three points quite comfortably. And then some!

I interviewed Robert Green last week for Soccer Saturday. I’m sure you’ll give him a warm welcome back when he takes his place between the sticks on Sunday. But after that I hope you give him hell! He’s a great guy though and a terrifically honest interviewee. He admitted that QPR have not been at it so far this season, especially at White Hart Lane and Old Trafford where they got a good hiding. He said they’d been too ‘nice’, not ruthless enough defensively and hadn’t done enough to put the oppositions back line under pressure either. I think we’ve got the personnel now that can really take advantage of that. QPR did much better last weekend against a Southampton team currently rampant, but, without Austin’s worldy, the defeat would have been far more emphatic. Kranjcar almost stole another late point for the second week running with yet another classy free kick but this time the crossbar had other ideas. We’ll have to watch that!

Our old friend Harry has openly admitted he hasn’t quite found the best way to play with his team. He hasn’t established the right system. He intended to adopt a back three like he used to some success during his Portsmouth days but, like Van Gaal , he had to abandon those plans pretty sharpish. His back line are still getting to grips with the league and each other. Rio is obviously not the player he was, his partnership with Steven Caulker is still a work in progress and the two fullbacks Traore and Isla are wing backs by trade and are yet to settle adequately into the four. All good news for us of course and I’m confident Allardyce has identified the weaknesses to exploit and expose there.

In the centre of the park players like Barton, Sandro and Mutch have struggled with fitness and in the final third, having sold Loic Remy, QPR are relying heavily on Austin as the lone front man and the team as a whole have only managed four goals so far this season.

On top of all that the Hoops are still looking for their first away win. I don’t think they’ll get it at the Boleyn. Although, unfortunately for us, Harry Redknapp’s record at his old stomping ground is pretty damn good. P7, W5, D1, L1. Even Pompey used to give us a slap at home under Harry! Only Piquionne has provided the claret and blue faithful with any glory over our former gaffer when we beat Spurs one nil just over four years ago exactly. I’m dreaming of putting a few more than that past Greeny this weekend.

As I write this there’s no solid news online on Noble and I’m assuming he’s out, but with or without him I feel we have more than enough to win quite resolutely. For me this is far more of a test than the trip to Old Trafford. The West Ham of yore would undoubtedly give a winless team a big fat juicy victory for their troubles but I just don’t see that happening this time.

For those who return, Rio, Robert, Bobby and Harry, I predict you won’t be having a Super Sunday.

Wasn’t exactly short and sweet was it in the end? Once I start I do tend to go on. Now for The West Wing!

B x

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