That was not what I had expected. And please don’t blame my brother either. He had agreed to watch the game with me (he supports the Hammers too now, due to my supporting them) and pretty much everything was pointing towards a West Ham win, stats, previous performances, run of form, even our starting XI on paper looked a handful for a team like Burnley. But this game has come as a timely reminder to NEVER get too cocky when it comes to football in general, especially when West Ham are concerned.
I won’t go too much into analysing the game, that can be dealt with fairly quickly. From the first whistle we were never at the races. There was no sense of urgency, no fight, no guts, no desire and precious little effort on our part.
Our players looked sluggish and were second to almost every ball.
Burnley, on the other hand, couldn’t believe their luck. They could pass at will, had almost the entire midfield to themselves and despite wasting numerous opportunities (some of which were saved really well by Fabianski, in my view the West Ham player who left the pitch with the most credit by far on the day) Burnley still managed to score twice. That’s a team, by the way, that had only won once in their previous twelve attempts.
Once again, as so often in our history, West Ham had managed to make a very average outfit, to put it mildly, look like Liverpool or Barcelona on one of their better days.
I thought we had reached a stage by now where we don’t act as convenient confidence boosters for struggling sides anymore, but that’s exactly what we did. I wasn’t overly concerned when we conceded first, after all we had shown in previous games how to turn around scorelines quickly, what with the quality and pace we have in our side now.
But still there was not much of a fight. No collective rolling up of sleeves and making things difficult for Burnley. I cannot for the life of me understand how Burnley managed to keep a clean sheet against us.
Maybe it’s because we decided to head our very few goalscoring chances straight towards their keeper. I don’t think putting Heaton in goal instead of Hart made too much of a difference on the day.
We simply didn’t offer enough, at both ends of the pitch and Burnley might have kept that clean sheet even if they had played their U16 goalkeeper.
It was that bad a game from us. Burnley didn’t play like a relegation candidate, we did.
My brother and I had talked a lot early on in the game, then we began complaining and cursing, we were soon shouting and gesturing wildly at the screen, we wanted West Ham to fight back and put Burnley under pressure.
Towards the end of the game we were merely shaking our heads. I couldn’t believe our display of non-performance and my brother couldn’t either, especially after seeing the highlights of the Southampton game earlier.
It was a bad day at the office, but what’s more important: It was a big opportunity wasted and Pellegrini needs to find out why the entire team capitulated the way they did. Were they just tired and exhausted due to far too many injuries among our squad ? Did they underestimate the opposition and task at hand right from the first whistle ?
I just hope we can use this game as part of our learning curve, making sure we approach every single game against every opposition team with the same level of desire, effort and application. If we can do that, this shambolic performance will at least serve a purpose for us for the rest of the season.
We cannot approach games against Brighton or Birmingham with the same lackluster and careless attitude.
But let’s put the Burnley game in perspective. We are still in a good position to climb the table as we enter 2019. Hopefully, with some players finally returning from injury, we can continue to grow and improve as a team.
And Pellegrini in my book is the perfect manager to make sure we do just that. I reckon he was in a foul mood after the Burnley game, he will let the players know in no uncertain terms what he thought of that performance and will push them hard in the upcoming training sessions to make amends.
We are not yet the kind of team unfortunately that will ALWAYS beat the so-called lesser teams, we simply aren’t quite there yet. But the journey will be an exciting one for sure!
So when I usher in the new year later with a glass of bubbly and a jam filled Berliner (traditional German donut traditionally eaten after midnight at New Year) I will not dwell on the Burnley defeat anymore but focus instead on the wonderful news that Declan Rice has committed at least his near future to West Ham, surely one of the best news for the club since we brought Pellegrini to the club in the summer.
It promises to be another highly interesting year for West Ham fans worldwide – COYI!!!
I’d like to wish every single WHTID reader, author and contributor a very Happy New Year! May 2019 bring you health, joy and good fortune in abundance! It’s been a pleasure writing for you all! Looking forward to talking West Ham with you in 2019. Bring it on!