Riverside picnic with riparian entertainment – that is a key phrase from one famous episode of “Keeping up appearances”, one of my favourite British sitcoms. To this day I’m not entirely sure what exactly this kind of event would look like, but it sounds bloody impressive and is bound to include food!
Fulham of course have in Craven Cottage one of the most traditional football grounds in the entire Premier League, with bags of old-school charm and you cannot deny that the location right by the river adds to the overall appeal.
I have always had a soft spot for Fulham, the Cottagers or Lilywhites – Lilywhites always reminds me of the shop on Piccadilly Circus where in 1996 I used to buy rugby shirts, cricket bats and also had a butcher’s at the new collection of PL shirts at the start of the new season. Strange, the things you remember…
Anyway, the game had another element to it – literally, the elements. It was coming down in buckets, cats, dogs and badgers, with some stair-rods thrown in. Playing football in those conditions is challenging for the players, but it makes watching even more fascinating for the supporter, especially if he can watch from a comfy armchair in a well heated flat, a mug of steaming hot tea in one hand and screwdriver in the other…
What West Ham gave us was a highly professional, breathtakingly clinical and well-executed team performance. We did what the hosts didn’t on the day: Take our goalscoring opportunities. Fulham had plenty, yet we kept a clean sheet, thanks to some fantastic saves by Fabianski (especially early on in the game) and solid defending on our part which obviously includes our back four in general, but especially our CB partnership of Diop and Balbuena (who was my MotM).
But every West Ham player got stuck in, including Anderson, which was nice to see.
Here is a flair player who is not above tracking back and tackling hard in midfield in order to stop a counter-attack from developing by kicking the ball into touch, good on ya, Felipe! The goals were the end product of two great passing moves, aided by shambolic defending by Fulham, but they were emphatically taken by Snodgrass and Antonio.
Go back in time to the start of the season and we score neither of both opportunities. Snodgrass and Antonio were brimming with confidence though which is why they took care of business the way they did.
I saw a team out there that was genuinely working and functioning as a unit, players running the extra mile to help out their teammates. Our substitutions were spot on in my view which means that I would have made exactly the same choices as Pellegrini did. It’s all coming together now and for me the astonishing thing is a) how quickly it’s actually happening and b) that we are doing it with nearly an entire team out with long- and medium-term injuries.
That’s my main gripe still and while some injuries are down to freak incidents such as in the cases of Lanzini, Reid and Sanchez, those you can not do a lot about, I was not too thrilled with the signings of both Yarmolenko and Wilshere due to their well documented injury history. Personally, I wouldn’t take these gambles anymore but rather go for players who may be not as good technically but who can give you 30 games a season. Players who are out injured cost wages without being being able to contribute on the pitch.
Other clubs are potentially able to cope with that, we can’t long-term in my humble opinion. Although we seem to do pretty well right now, despite the injury curse still hanging over us.
Jack Wilshere is an exciting footballer when fit and I love watching him play. However, both of his ankles have now been affected by separate injury issues. I have an uncomfortable inkling he might be heading towards a similar fate that Dean Ashton eventually had to suffer. I’m not saying his career is already over. There will probably be several attempts of comebacks for him on the pitch, playing a few games before succumbing to another knock, hairline crack or ankle sprain. I obviously wish it doesn’t happen like that.
I simply hope that in the not too distant future we will have a season for once where at any given time only 2 or 3 of our players are out simultaneously, and the layoff is weeks rather than months or an entire season. But that would probably involve more rigorous scouting and another overhaul of our training facilities. But that’s a different debate altogether.
Other than the injuries life is pretty good at West Ham these days, innit ? As supporters we can look forward to games rather than dreading another drubbing. We are playing football that is very pleasing on the eye, the players look motivated and as if they’re enjoying themselves a lot out there. Also, we seem to have cut down the number of silly individual mistakes (which more often than not have directly led to us conceding goals).
For me this all comes down to Manuel Pellegrini, it begins and ends with him. Here is a manager who obviously knows what he is doing. Contrary to some of us fans, myself included, he didn’t panic when we lost four in a row at the start of the season. He had a roadmap of how he wanted us to play and followed through with teaching the players his philosophy and ideas which obviously takes a bit of time – but it’s all bearing fruit now.
Remember this is not even our best starting XI which is playing, still we are winning games now. When your team is taking the pitch full of confidence and with a bit of swagger, results will pretty much take care of themselves. It must be a much more fulfilling feeling coming to training during the week after having won another game.
I suppose as players you don’t ever get bored of winning, you get addicted, you want more of that winning feeling.
Which is why I am confident for our last fixture before christmas, the home game against Watford, a side that has gone the opposite path really, starting the season well and going downhill from there. Watford are still probably the strongest of all the sides we have played in the past four weeks. Another good performance is required to keep the points in East London and continue our amazing (and highly satisfying) winning run.
Perez may be back again for this one, hopefully partnering Chicharito upfront, probably developing another level of chemistry between the two strikers. But even if Perez doesn’t start, Pellegrini seems to have found a way to send out a team desperate to perform and hell-bent on winning the game. At this point we look like a force to be reckoned with. Other teams don’t fancy playing us anymore. Which is a wonderful change in the weather for us. How often in recent past did we provide a much needed boost for failing teams ? Pellegrini appears to have stopped that altogether.
If you want to beat West Ham these days you need to take your chances and play well – despite the festive season West Ham are unlikely to hand out any gifts on the pitch anymore. Long may it continue…COYI!!!
Hamburg football update: Winter break for lower league football. All Concordia teams are resting up, returning to training in January and competitive football in February.
Despite a shambolic first half of the season, Concordia’s first team will keep their current manager at the helm, but they have already announced certain player movements, new (hopefully better quality) players will be brought in replacing those who rarely got minutes on the pitch anyway.
Hamburg SV and St.Pauli have both won their respective fixtures and are right in the middle of the promotion battle, HSV waving from top spot in the table, St.Pauli chasing from behind, trying to make up a six point deficit.