Not exactly the day I had envisaged. I was about to leave the house when I couldn’t find my season tickets. They weren’t in the drawer I assumed they were in. Anyway, I emailed a contact at the club who kindly arranged for two tickets for me to be collected at the ticket office between J and K entrances. So far so good. Heavy traffic at the Blackwall tunnel meant that we arrived very late and took ages to find anywhere to park. So we didn’t get to the ticket office until 2.15. We queued, and we queued and we queued. And then we queued some more. There were five ticket windows. One allocated to Bournemouth fans and the others for people with surnames beginning with A-I, J-R and S-Z. Surprise, surprise that the A-I one was double the length of the others. Who’d have thunk. As three o’clock neared I seriously thought about going home given the queue showed no sign of moving at all. 3.15 came and went. Then 3.30. Only when the Bournemouth queue had finished were we allowd to switch over. Quite how I didn’t lose it, I do not know, but we took our seats at 3.42 having heard the penalty go in.
And things took a turn for the worse.
Obviously I can’t say what happened in the first 45 minutes, but if the second half was anything to go by there is an awful lot to worry us. There were only three new outfield players in the starting line-up – Balbuena, Wishere and Anderson, so it’s difficult to blame everything on them or the fact that they need time to gel. Pellegrini blamed it more on the players already at the club saying there was an overhang of nervousness from last season. Who knows what it was, but it doesn’t bode well.
We had nothing up front, although it was a surprise for Hernandez to be taken off so early. He and Arnautovic had skant little service in the second half. Snodgrass seemed to have lost all his pre-season initiative and guile, while on the other side Felipe Anderson did little to give us any confidence at all that he was worth £4 million, let alone £40 million. His final ball rarely hit its target and invariably went to a Bournemouth player. An utterly underwhelming performance.
The only bright spot of the match was the performance of Andrij Yarmolenko. I’m not sure he’s fully fit but he showed commitment, ingenuity and skill. I’d love him to start the next few games.
At the back, we didn’t look too bad, apart from the two goals, neither of which would have been conceded by a back four with any degree of concentration. The first goal was a total abomination. Calum Wilson is a half decent player, but he beat five West Ham defenders plus the goalkeeper. That simply should not happen. Ogbonna gave the foul away and then let his marker get away. 2-0. For that alone, he deserves to lose his place next week. Zabaleta had his worst game for us. All over the place, lethargic and lacking concentration. Masuaku was better than last week, but that’s a pretty low bar.
In central midfield, well, there’s not much to report. Noble passed backwards again, while Wilshere played the odd interesting ball in. And then nearly got himself sent off for a stupid challenge.
I’m now writing this in an Edinburgh hotel room, having flown up here from Heathrow straight after the game. And don’t get me started on British Airways…
Anyway, I imagine you’re all as depressed as I am, so maybe I should just go to bed. Night.