My column today will be a lot shorter than you are used to, for a variety of reasons. Part of it is to do with a long matchday at Concordia yesterday, yielding mixed results and also the fact I then only joined the stream of the Watford game shortly before the halftime whistle when we were already 1:0 down and Arnautovic was just missing a golden double goalscoring opportunity.
1:0 down at halftime was not exactly an unexpected scoreline of course, meaning I still had reasonably high hopes that the new broom effect would properly kick in for us during the second half.
Alas, it wasn’t to be. Earlier on Sunday it was a reasonably fine day in Hamburg, with mostly clear skies, but it was incredibly cold. Cordi’s second team won the early game against their neighbours in the table, 4th placed Vier- und Marschlande with a 1:0 scoreline, with the game itself not doing a lot to raise either blood pressure or body temperature, but a win is a win.
Then in the afternoon it got really really frustrating though and I inititially thought West Ham had just been beamed to Concordia’s home ground at short notice.
Why is that ? Well, the unbeaten table toppers of Dassendorf had come to town. Not just unbeaten in fact, but as a team that had won all its 16 league games in a row so far this season, yet Concordia had them on the brink, taking a promising 2:0 lead with 35 minutes to go. But, in best West Ham fashion, the Cordi boys managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, despite putting on a commendable and brave fight against the Invincibles from the countryside.
The guests were there for the taking but if you needlessly concede a penalty, allowing your adversary a path back into the contest, then you also cannot really complain if your goalkeeper makes one fatal blunder right at the end to basically gift the opposition a late and slightly undeserved winner. I was gutted. Shellshocked. Cordi had been oh so close to a massive upset. But no cigar. And no grilled sausages either due to rampaging youngsters vandalizing the club’s barbecue grill a few weeks ago.
Well, at least there still was the West Ham game, they would be there for me surely and cheer me up with a decent away performance – with a new gaffer in charge surely there would be an upturn in miles covered, effort, guts and results of course.
If only football was so simple. There were quite a few opportunities when West Ham could have turned their game around. But we missed every single goalscoring opportunity on the day. The defending still looked incredibly shaky.
And I have to say that I was still mightily disappointed with the overall running and pressing effort from our guys. For a team that already is smack in the middle of a relegation scrap we still look fairly disinterested, not really bovvered. So a new broom, but still the same old dirt and dust by the looks of it.
Of course it can’t be easy if you are in a downward spiral anyway – football is a game where confidence is key. Confidence can only grow with results and those will only begin to change for the better if we stop shipping goals and start scoring them.
As a club we need to stop hiding behind excuses. Players should no longer hide behind the manager. The board shouldn’t point the finger at the manager or the fans.
Moyes won’t hide at this point anyway as he is still very much in the process of finding his feet at his new club. So he will and should be getting some time to change things for the better.
Everyone at the club needs to pull their weight, take responsibility in his or her respective role. The thought of relegation doesn’t even register yet. There still is plenty of time to turn it all around. And turn it around we must. But we need some decent performances and results sharpish for that to happen in order to gain some much needed confidence. Confidence is key and that’s where the manager and team have to deliver. Us fans can do our bit, but once the whistle sounds the players have to play, kick the ball and perform.
This season feels very strange to me, I feel quite distant from it all emotionally, and maybe this will all change with my upcoming visit when I can actually watch another two games in person.
Usually the West Ham game is among the highlights of my week, at this point I still watch when I can, but I am no longer anticipating the games as eagerly as before.
Right now it feels very much like a force of habit watching our beloved Hammers and I really hope the pure and undiluted joy I used to feel when getting ready for the next game will come back to me over the course of the season.
Luckily enough there now is no international break on the horizon, in fact West Ham can put things right as early as Friday evening, against a Leicester side I am simply unable to figure out this season. On paper the game is definitely winnable. As the game will be played on a football pitch though, and a bloody big one at that, God only knows what is going to happen.
As usual I shall be hoping for the best. But changing the tyres on my motor this Friday, finally putting the winter tyres on, may prove to be a more exciting and also ultimately more successful enterprise than watching West Ham’s efforts to beat The Foxes in Stratford.
Mr.Moyes, please prove me wrong, get the lads back on the training pitch, make ’em work their socks off and give us a win. Surely Leicester should present us with a better chance to do that than upcoming opponents like Arsenal or Chelsea. COYI!!!