Never in doubt! It’s easy to say in hindsight we were always bound to win the Southampton game what with so much riding on this. I had confidently predicted a 3:1 win as I knew that this was last chance saloon time for us.
At some point our team was always likely to take an opponent to the cleaners, as long as the players were approaching the game with the right application and gameplan.
When I settled down in my armchair at the customary time though, five minutes prior to kickoff, screwdriver at the ready, I had no idea what kind of treat we were all in for.
This was one of those rare games where I didn’t really need the screwdriver at all as even I knew at halftime that Southampton wouldn’t come back from a three goal deficit. With my mind put at ease I was really comfortable watching the second half go by in a fairly relaxed manner (and so were our players…LOL).
After seeing loads of shocking first half performances from our team this season at the London Stadium this one was a masterclass in making your opportunities count and performing exceptionally well just at the time when your collective backs at the club are firmly wedged to the wall.
At the hazard of repeating the obvious: This was a bona fide team performance with every single player showing effort, guts and endeavour. Southampton may have been a pretty weak opponent on the day, but we made it very hard for them by being in their faces early, running at them, pressing them, hunting them down like a hungry pack of wolves on the prowl.
You couldn’t name a single player for us who didn’t put in a shift, well, Joe Hart didn’t really have a save to make, but that ain’t his fault. All the others were a joy to behold and I didn’t really see us putting a foot wrong all game. It’s a bit unfair to single out players although several would have deserved special mentions, so what the heck!
My Top 3 players on Saturday were Mario, Rice and Kouyate. But I wouldn’t blame any of my readers if they picked someone else, you are also right…-))
I’m going to nail my colours to the mast here and say that in a few years we may look back and regard Mario’s first goal for West Ham as one of the most important in our (recent) history.
We all knew it was vital for us to score first in the Southampton game what with the toxic connotations of the stadium and sections of the home crowd still ringing in our ears from the Burnley game.
A repeat, maybe in even nastier fashion, was always on the cards if Southampton had scored the first goal.
And defeat might have sent us on a spiral straight down into the Championship for God knows how many years.
As it was, Mario did the honours and it wasn’t just an incredibly vital goal but also a belter, crowning a glorious counter attack of ours, covering the length of the pitch, with Kouyate providing a hell of a run and a peach of a pinpoint pass to Mario’s feet. With so much riding on the first goal and the outcome of this game I am now putting Mario’s goal in my personal Top 5 West Ham goals of all time which obviously also includes this one…
I think we all agree that we have finally seen in the Southampton game the level of effort and positivity on the pitch we were lacking far too often this season.
The players were running and playing their socks off straight from the first whistle and not surprisingly the crowd was right behind them, so it was a symbiosis where the team gave the supporters something to cheer about and that in return lifted the players and so forth. The way it should be really.
We have seen what the players are capable of if they put in the effort. It’s both mesmerising and frustrating to then consider all those lackluster and inept performances we had to endure this season. Our team shouldn’t be fighting relegation at this late stage in the season. I may be tempting fate, but I think the Southampton win has put us into a fairly comfortable position now.
All the teams below us are running out of games and need wins quickly, not just one, but at least two or three to have a chance of survival. What teams like West Brom, Stoke, Huddersfield , Palace or Southampton are lacking now though is momentum. Each of those teams I have just mentioned have gained four points or less from their last five games.
That’s relegation form and bearing in mind their remaining fixtures those teams have now a much higher mountain to climb than us.
As a sidenote I couldn’t fail but notice both David Gold and Sullivan sporting flat caps while watching the Southampton game. Maybe it was their way to curry some favour with the West Ham fanbase among which you can spot plenty of flat caps on matchdays on a regular basis. Whatever it was, it seemed to do the trick and I’d rather see them sticking with those magic flat caps rather than seeing the usual Russian oligarch model make a return to the directors’ box.
It’s a much happier position for us now to think ahead a bit to figure out what needs to be done in the summer to avoid a repeat of the dismal season (on the whole) we’ve been witnessing so far. Here’s my tuppence worth anyway.
Hire a director of football and let him do his job
Self explanatory really. Our board should provide a budget and then let the DoF get on with it, negotiating deals and making sure our manager (whoever he may be) can secure the targets he wants to improve the team. This obviously can only work though if the DoF is allowed to do what he’s been hired to do and doesn’t merely act as a poster boy to placate the fanbase with the board still pulling the strings in the background regardless.
Sign Declan Rice to a long term deal
He is a special talent, isn’t he ? God knows for how long we will be able to hang onto him. But he looks like the real deal, playing with a maturity and composure well beyond his young years. Is he the best we’ve had since the days of Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard Jr. and Joe Cole ? I think he could well be and I hope he will be a Hammer for years to come. Not just a very decent footballer, but he comes across as a very level-headed and nice guy. Definitely good enough to start games for us now. The boy is ready!
If Mario continues to improve, keep him!
By all accounts Joao Mario seems to enjoy life at West Ham and is willing to stay beyond this season. He still needs to adjust to the pace and physicality of the league, but if he can deliver more performances like the Southampton one I reckon he may well be worth spending the £27 million which I have seen quoted as the price we may have agreed with Inter to make his move permanent. If we decide the player is right for us and if he wants to stay we need to stop pinching the pennies and spend that kind of money.
Quality players have a price and haggling will only get you so far.
End the Carroll era at West Ham
Yes, I know he is unplayable on his day. And he only has one year left on his contract. But at some point we just need to cut our losses and move on. There are plenty of strikers out there who can stay healthy for at least 25 or 30 games a season. That alone helps to give yourself a chance of having a 20 goal a season striker, although we all would be quite happy with one scoring double digits.
I have heard Carroll may be in line to play 3 or 4 games for us later this season. Be that as it may, I still see him mainly as a super sub or luxury player now and I’m simply not sure it’s worth it going through yet another typical Andy Carroll season at West Ham beyond this summer.
Name a long term manager
I’m not sure if Moyes is the perfect fit for us really. I see it more like an arrangement that has worked reasonably well for both sides, but not much more than that.
Saying that though I wouldn’t mind if we kept him, but if that happens he needs to be given a long term deal. Players need to know that there is a certain degree of consistency and continuity at a club – and a manager with a one year contract doesn’t provide that.
It changes the whole power setup within a club and makes it harder for a manager to exert any meaningful influence on the players. I have been yearning for a long term strategy at our club for ages now – and we desperately need one. I shall leave it up to your imagination if the current board are the right people to come up with that strategy.
Address the injury problems
It’s not normal, is it ? We are constantly among the top when it comes to having players out injured, including long term injuries. We tend to get a lot of muscle related injuries, Antonio being the most recent example. Is it a case of having too many injury prone players ? Do we rush them back too quickly from injury or don’t warm them up properly before games ? Or could it indeed be training facilities that seem very mediocre for a Premier league club like ours, especially when you compare them to those available at clubs of similar size to us ? Whatever it is, the issues need to be analysed, with external professional advice if need be, and they need to be sorted out.
How many times have we been able this season to field the same starting XI two or three games running ?
Blimey, this got a lot longer than I had planned, but the Southampton win, coupled with some very nice quality time spent with my brother and his family over the Easter weekend has put me in a jolly good mood. Despite Concordia losing a crazy home game on Good Friday by a 3:4 scoreline. Two Cordi goals were converted penalties, the other one a cornerkick that ended up in goal. Other than that the Cordi players had a shocking game.
To give you an idea that West Ham aren’t the only club that is occasionally being run like circus, allow me to confess to you the bizarre incident that the game I’ve just mentioned kicked off with a seven minute delay because the referee realised just before the first whistle that all four corner flags were missing!!!
For whatever reason, not a single corner flag was out there on the edges of the pitch where it should have been as a matter of principle.
Some players from the substitutes’ bench actually had to run over to the storage room to pick up the flags and put them in their customary spots in the four corners.
Only at Concordia…;-))
And the pre-match comment from the Cordi manager to this column’s author may make some of you smile with glee (he knows me and is aware I’m West Ham).
He approached me, asking me what the f*** was going on at West Ham and that I must be utterly clueless as a supporter for choosing two very strange (and mediocre) clubs to support. Well, like I mentioned before, I didn’t really choose to support either.
In both cases becoming a fan simply happened for me and once you’re smitten you are stuck with them, with no turning back.
Whatever happens at my English and German footballing love respectively, you won’t catch me playing away. I won’t switch my allegiance to Altona or Arsenal, come what may! To quote a certain Karren Brady: “It is what it is!” COYI!!!