Call me crazy, call me mental or even call an ambulance, but I ain’t panicking yet! I actually saw a lot of things I liked about our performance at Arsenal. Of course you never really enjoy watching your team lose a game of football, but I reckon Arsenal were extremly lucky on the day. They of course converted their opportunities while we on the other hand didn’t convert some outright sitters. Goals don’t lie, but they don’t always tell the entire story:
Arsenal won, but I’m not really sure they deserved it.
In several stretches during the game we were all over them, time and time again easing past their midfield thanks to the scintillating pace of Felipe Anderson, of Antonio or Masuaku. If there had been more of an end product and we had just shown a bit more confidence in front of the opposition goal we might even have won that game.
Alas, it was not to be and matters didn’t improve on a personal level when a nasty toothache coming out of nowhere began ruining my entire weekend!
I got through it all somehow with the aid of some painkillers, but that didn’t provide points on the board for West Ham!
It may sound bonkers, but I was quite impressed with the way we played, yes, despite the 1:3 scoreline! We are still looking shaky at the back (and this will probably be MP’s top priority for now), but in terms of switching from defence to attack our lads looked both pleasing on the eye and promising for the upcoming games, we looked like a proper team, with players making good runs and fighting for each other.
Also Fabianski pulled off a number of very decent saves and if it hadn’t been for him it might have turned into a very impressive Arsenal win instead of merely a lucky one.
The much maligned Sanchez also looked quite useful in his defensive midfielder role and I’m excited to see more from him.
Let’s not forget that Manuel Pellegrini is building a new team here, a squad of his own, playing with a distinct philosophy, style and swagger. This won’t happen overnight, same as Rome wasn’t built in a day. This is a marathon, not a sprint and why would anyone want to throw in the towel after just three games of the season ?
I know that football fans tend to take fickleness to whole new levels time and time again and I’m not excluding myself from that reproach.
However, if every fan got frustrated after three bad games (nevermind a whole season going badly or several in a row) I suppose one would have to find himself or herself a new club an awful lot or look out for a more successful team to support that may throw, kick or pass a differently shaped ball around…
I don’t like losing, I think I’m pretty bad at it and this also applies to West Ham of course. It’s not nice coming into the Concordia clubhouse being greeted by players or staff asking why the heck West Ham lost again. While I consider it a small victory that plenty of those guys now check the West Ham scores regularly due to my supporting them I would love to report back to them not only about decent performances but also some wins sooner rather than later.
I am sure those wins will come, they may even pile up once we begin to get a taste of them. I have full trust in MP and his staff of coaches, I reckon the players trust him as well and it will take some time to keep the faith and improve together. It’s a long season and while we’re already with our backs to the wall after gaining zero points out of a possible nine we now of course have a decent opportunity to get things right in the upcoming cup fixture against Wimbledon…underground, overground, wombling free…oops, sorry, I forgot, NO SINGING!!! :-))
Every cup game is a potential banana skin obviously, but I see this one more as a perfect opportunity to kickstart our season. I have no doubt that we have some decent players in our squad now, what these guys need is some confidence and they will get that once things start to click and results begin going our way. They will also gain said confidence if the support from the stands continues undiminished. Patience is key here, we have got all the ingredients in place, we just need to find the recipe and start cooking.
I’m sure the finished product will have been well worth the wait. COYI!!!
Which brings me to the Hamburg football update: Hamburg SV are playing Bielefeld later today in the Monday Night game.
St.Pauli suffered a heavy defeat (1:4) in the capital at Union Berlin, but at least both Concordia teams won on Sunday, the U23s at home (4:1) and the first team away (4:0).
I was present for the away win and it was such a relief to see the Cordi lads play like a proper team, playing nice attacking football, scoring plenty of goals (they could have scored even more) and finally keeping a clean sheet on top of that!
The Cordi manager was so happy with the performance that he decided in the post-match huddle to give the boys some time off, so as an exception to the rule there will be no training this evening. Indeed the Cordi lads deserve it!
Hopefully something similar is going to happen at West Ham after a great performance against Wimbledon…