West Ham Till I Die
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Zaman Siddiqui's Match Review

Gunned down by the Gunners

This defeat doesn’t come as much of a surprise. We know all too well what Arsenal are capable of. They are very clinical and that is reflected in the scoreline, as the Gunners ran away with it in the end winning 3-0. The three goals came in the short space of 25 minutes. This is why Arsenal have become the first Premier League side to score 100 goals in all competitions this season. Wenger knows that this match doesn’t have much significance in the grand scheme of things, but it will help players like Walcott, who has scored more goals against us than any other PL team and Ozil, who has scored and assisted in this match as well as the reverse fixture. That said, Lukaku is, and always will be, our biggest fear.

The fact that they bring their A game against us is rather unfortunate. The previous two teams that Arsenal won against are Lincoln City and Sutton United. It isn’t as if Arsenal have been playing well of late. In fact, Tottenham are on track to finish above Arsenal for the first time since 1995! The North London Derby between Spurs and Arsenal receives a lot of attention, but the brawl between West Ham and Arsenal is also quite feisty. For instance, we were the last team to win at Highbury and the first to win at the Emirates. But recently, the Gunners have become rather vindictive. Forget about the game of football, we are the game with the gun pointing right at us.

For decades, these gunners have been above us in the taxonomy. The common West Ham peasant, I mean pheasant, has been established as an easy target for these gunners. If we were to go down the taxonomy to the Championship, the pheasant may simply be later classified as roadkill. Fortunately, we have managed to keep away from relegation by the hands of the incompetent hunters. The Black Cats did so last season with wins against Chelsea and Everton in their final few games, but thankfully, the situation isn’t as perilous for us.

Often, these big clubs hunt like Elmer Fudd tracking down Bugs Bunny. They think that every match they play against the smaller teams is going to result in a win. But like Elmer Fudd, when things don’t go according to plan, they antagonise others. For instance, when Big Sam masterminded a 0-0 draw against Chelsea, Mourinho admitted he was frustrated at our tactics – typical Jose! Additionally, when we beat Arsenal last season with 16 year old Reece Oxford pocketing Mesut Ozil, there was a lot of exasperation. It goes to show that you don’t need a big arsenal (pun intended) to beat the big teams. Now if only we could afford to be as carefree as Bugs Bunny…

As if it wasn’t obvious enough, we are in a relegation battle. Had Swansea beaten Tottenham, we would’ve been just three points off the drop zone. Thankfully, Spurs’ comeback means that we are five points off the drop zone. Never have I been more proud of them than now. We are in quite a bit of a sticky wicket. If we win our next two matches against Swansea and Sunderland, we will be on 39 points. If we lose both, then our chances of getting relegated are very likely. Two of our last three fixtures are against Liverpool and Tottenham, so we can’t afford to leave it late like Sunderland did last season. We just can’t. The two teams are currently 2nd and 3rd! Sunderland had Big Sam, who is very experienced. We have Slaven Bilic, who has none.

I personally believe that the board did the right thing in announcing that they are fully behind the gaffer. There will likely be nerves around the training ground, so it is important that the players are able to focus on the task at hand. I know that some think that replacing a manager does wonders. Just looking closely at the table, it is anything but. Despite changing managers, Palace, Hull, Swansea and Boro are all below us. This goes to show that perhaps changing managers is not quite so effective after all.

Not many would have expected a win from this game. However, that does not mean we can go into our next two matches with a defeatist mentality. The defending in the first half of this game wasn’t too bad. We will play Swansea on Saturday who led Tottenham 1-0. The fact that they lost will affect them psychologically. We need to make sure we use home advantage this time round and increase that gap between us and the relegation zone. In the first half, we took pride in defending with more tackles, interceptions and blocks than our opponents. If we can play with that solidity in defence, we should be able to get a result against the Swans. We can’t rely on a few inspired individual performances scattered across the pitch. We need to work together as a unit and give it our all.

It will take some time before our players can perform well on a regular basis. Some of them are shadows of their former selves. We need to be able to work together as a tight-knit bunch. For Slaven, this means giving opportunities to players based on form and also how well they integrate within the squad. This means that if a player isn’t technically gifted, but is able to provide other qualities to the team, that he should continue playing. This means don’t make changes for changes sake, but only if they can bolster the squad. For instance, no player has made more errors leading to a goal than Darren Randolph this season (three, level with Simon Francis and John Stones). Given that a goalkeeper is the easiest player to replace (chemistry-wise), that putting Adrián back in won’t affect the other players that much.


Our next two fixtures against Swansea and Sunderland are the most significant of the season. If we win both, we can rest fairly easily. But if we lose both, then we are in a whole heap of trouble. We have a lot riding on these two fixtures. Imagine if we were to get relegated. We have a lot of amazing players in our squad that simply won’t want to play in a lower league. We have an amazing stadium with a capacity of 57,000. Do you imagine how silly Newcastle must feel playing there with Rafa Benitez in a stadium with a capacity of 52,354? The thing is, promotion is no guarantee. We had to do it the hard way via the play-offs. That final was the nerviest match I have ever experienced!!! We recovered after five consecutive draws to get to the play-offs in 2012, but the question is, can we recover after five consecutive defeats to stay up? Like the former, I hope the latter is equally easy.

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