Utter relief, that was my overriding feeling after the game on Saturday. There is a tendency for inflation when it comes to identifying must win games.
We certainly needed all three points in this one, mainly to find some confidence and team spirit for the upcoming battle against relegation.
While the league title is pretty much in the bag for Liverpool already, and has been for quite a while, despite their bewildering defeat against Watford, things are a lot more interesting and competitive at the other end of the table with seven teams (at least) including us being in the mix for the drop.
Newcastle and Brighton are on awful runs of form, they could get sucked into the relegation scrap properly now. If I had to pick three teams today, my top candidates for relegation at the end of the season would probably be Norwich, Villa and Brighton.
As for the Southampton game, there was a lot to like about our performance and hopefully also a few pointers for Moyes as to how to approach the upcoming fixtures. First of all, and most importantly, there was effort and application galore from our players out there. Everyone ran, fought, tried to make things happen. In football usually you get rewarded for that kind of performance from the entire team.
Just two minutes before the start I was in a bit of a panic as I couldn’t find my tried and trusted screwdriver, my preferred tool to help calm my nerves down when watching West Ham. I couldn’t ask the FA to delay the kickoff at such short notice, so I rummaged around frantically on and under my living room table.
However, just seconds before the first whistle the screwdriver miraculously appeared under a newspaper and a half-full bag of liquourice. It’s not where that screwdriver belongs, but I digress.
We scored first, fairly quickly in the game, and it was Jarrod Bowen who didn’t take long to have a measurable impact in his first start for the Hammers, finishing brilliantly after a world-class pass by Fornals (who was my personal MotM). It’s always nice to see a new player hitting the ground running like this. It was even better to see Bowen busting a gut all game – and when he was asked afterwards by a reporter about his intensity levels during the game he merely shrugged his shoulders and called it a given.
If only every player in claret and blue saw it like that…
Another crucial factor was the way Haller was finally able to show what he can do if you give him support by players upfront, be they strikers, wingers or attacking midfielders.
Bowen, Antonio and Fornals were always making runs, providing outlets for Haller and the Frenchman was a constant thorn in Southampton’s side as a result.
I feel we need to keep this attacking formation in most games from now on, not only because it will help us getting the best out of Haller, but also because we need to ensure we score more goals than the opposition and we don’t seem to be very good at keeping clean sheets anyway, so let’s go and cause the opposition some defensive headaches as well.
We are essentially a counter-attacking team (I think we had only 36% of possession against Southampton) and we need to make our opportunities count whenever we break. We won’t score many with an isolated Haller upfront.
Playing the likes of Haller, Antonio, Bowen and Fornals all together in the next few games, allowing them to build some chemistry, I am confident they will pose a nightmare of significant proportions to most PL defenders. You may be able to mark one or two of them out of a game for some time, but certainly not all four at the same time all the time.
They offer pace, power and creativity and guys like Antonio and Bowen also chip in with an additional nasty element of unpredictability which can only help us in our attempt to pull away from the relegation zone.
We kept our intensity for most parts of the game too, with Rice being particularly good through the middle, but also our back four looked fairly solid and composed.
Special kudos has to go to young Jeremy “Sideburn” Ngakia who looked mature far beyond his years. Not perfect throughout, by no means, but learning fast and you can almost see him getting better all the time (to quote a famous line from a Beatles song).
I cannot begin to express how happy I was with the three points on top of a very decent performance as hopefully this will give the team the confidence our players need to be more positive and attack-minded in future games.
They will also be more at ease and less afraid to try and play football.
Confidence after a win will do this to you.
It’s awfully hard to believe you can still win football matches in this league when you haven’t done so for two months. The victory against Southampton showed that our players can still do it after all. This win should be our blueprint now for the difficult tasks ahead.
Mr.Moyes, you have found a line up and formation that worked pretty well, now put your trust in those lads and see if they can also do it in games against the likes of Arsenal or Wolves.
With players returning from injury gradually, Soucek, Yarmolenko, maybe even Wilshere – we may even finally get proper competition for places.
And who knows what could happen if Anderson and/or Lanzini re-discover some form again. We have given ourselves a good platform for the road ahead now, it’s up to the manager and the players to keep on improving, to play hard, to fight for every ball and win the points we need to keep our league status. It may not always be pretty, but it needs to happen for the sake of our club.
Which brings me, very briefly, to the march that took place before the game on Saturday. I wasn’t on the Greenway with the protestors of course, but you will not be surprised to read I would have gone on the march if I had been over. Estimates vary, but apparently between 5.000 and 7.000 marchers were there to voice their discontent with West Ham’s owners/custodians.
I do understand not everybody is happy with West Ham fans protesting in this manner or any other way, shape or form. I understand that the Hammers United folks cannot and do not speak for the entire fanbase and I don’t think they claim to do so.
I do respect their motivation and reasons for protesting though and it’s a wise move they are doing it outside the stadium, not in it while a game is on.
Surely, they have every right to express their dissatisfaction with the way the club has been run over the past ten years, the way the stadium move was handled, the hopeful promises and all the other bits and bobs, the blunders, the bravado and various astonishing decisions that have affected our club and its performance on and off the pitch as well as our fanbase in the recent past
By the same token I don’t begrudge any fan their desire and prerogative to express their happiness with and gratitude towards the board, to have their own march, create their own GSB FOREVER messages on banners, shirts and flags and parade them around Stratford. They also wouldn’t speak for the entire fanbase of course.
But it is up to each individual to decide if they want to march at all, if they want to protest against the board or for it. Or if they want to remain indifferent and away from picking sides. If you want to sit on the fence when it comes to the ownership at West Ham, that’s a legitimate choice as well, same as everyone is free not to cast his or her vote in general elections.
It is fairly obvious though that quite a few fans’ patience with GSB has run out, that they no longer trust the board and want them out, even at the risk of getting new owners in their place that may not necessarily be much better. Again, not every fan is going to share that view, but I for one can appreciate the protestors’ reasons for standing up for what they believe in.
It didn’t seem to affect our players adversely, by the way. The support from the fans during the game was positive throughout, as far as I could tell from my armchair. If it took a march of that proportion to get us the home win, maybe we should make those protests a compulsory pre-match ritual, every little helps, you know…;-)
Who knows what our owners will do though ? Will they speed up and intensify their efforts to find a buyer ?
Or will they try to sit this out and just let the protests wash over them ?
We shall see.
I still believe this club, or what is left of it, is still worth rooting and cheering for. However, if we want that to still be the case in 10 or 20 years then I do feel we may need to find new owners eventually.
But for now I’d be quite happy to see our players busting a gut for 90 minutes in every single remaining game we play this season. Will we win every game that way ? I doubt it.
Will we stay up that way ? 100%. COYI!!!