I’m sure some, if not many of you, have experienced what I am experiencing right now. Pure, unadulterated fatigue. I am tired of wearing a mask. I’m tired of feeling the need to take a shower after collecting the mail (I don’t, but it crosses my mind). I’m tired of seeing something online or at a shop, wondering if I’ll see it again in a week, and buying it out of panic. I’m tired of worrying about the election here. I’m tired of seeing the same fatigued and sometimes sad look on my kids.
I’m tired. Period.
The upside to that is I am not particularly worried about West Ham today, or even in general. It’s not that I have confidence things will get better. They might. They might not. Nor am I paying much attention to the takeover talk. It will happen one day is the assumption I work on. My lack of worry has currently been replaced by a lack of interest. We hadn’t beaten Wolves in quite a long time, I had no reason to think we would today, and there you have it. Just sit back and wait for the Traore induced horror show to commence. Around the 80th minute sounded familiar. Instead, quite literally an alternative reality commenced.
The first thing I noticed was the lack of crowd noise not being piped in during the broadcast here. As ridiculous as this seems, I prefer it to a cavernous echo. Depressing as hell.
One of the most common cliches in sport is that you cannot coach speed. Well, we know that is true because if it was possible I’d like to think we would have more of it. In the 13th minute Neto pushed the ball past Balbuena and then ran around him like my cat running through my legs to get to a toy. It ended up as a Wolves corner, and thankfully he were able to survive it unscathed.
A few minutes later, Antonio was fouled near the center circle. Atkinson allowed Fornals to take a quick free kick, and the Spaniard found Bowen breaking down the right. With three defenders in the box, a hopeful shot into a group of legs felt like the most reasonable outcome. Instead, Bowen curled a left footed shot past Patricio.
West Ham 1
Wolves 0
The Hammers could have doubled their advantage moments later when Antonio marched into the Wolves eighteen yard box and tried his own version of a curler. But curl it didn’t, and Patricio made a simple save.
West Ham had another terrific counter attack in the 25th minute when Masuaku stormed forward on the left and ran onto a pass from Antonio. Masuaku sent a low cross into the box that Soucek was able to re-direct, and that forced Patricio to dive to his left to make the stop. A few minutes later Neto found some space near the top of the Hammers box and tried to find the top corner but it went wide. Then back down the other end West Ham asked yet another question when a quick throw launched Antonio into the box. He sent a high ball in front of Patricio that Soucek got his head to but the Wolves keeper made the save.
If Antonio works on his finishing, he could become a truly lethal force in the box. He could have had a hat trick in the first half today to be fair. In the 38th minute Masuaku got him the ball in the Wolves box, and the leading scorer in the EPL since restart turned on Coady and let a low shot go. He didn’t hit the target.
West Ham should have gotten a second….for like the fourth time…late in the opening half. Antonio drove a low shot from the right side that Patricio parried out right to Fornals. Yes, the ball was bouncing. But he’s a professional football player and to my way of thinking he should have been able to do a lot better than a shot way over the bar from ten yards out. A minute later Wolves had a superb chance to level just before halftime when Neves was teed up in the box but Fabianski moved to his left to make a fine save.
Halftime
West Ham 1
Wolves 0
Fredericks has taken a lot of stick, much of it warranted. But he looked good against Arsenal, and had a good opening half today. So when he went off with what looked like a hamstring injury in the 46th minute it had to be seen as bad news. Not at all helped by the recent meltdowns from young Ben Johnson.
West Ham won a free kick on the left side of the Wolves eighteen yard box when Coady took Antonio down. Needlessly it seemed because it looked unlikely that Antonio would have caught up to his first touch. Cresswell whipped a cross into the box that Ogbonna got on the end of, but his header went over the bar.
West Ham finally got the second goal they had worked hard for when Antonio came into the box on the left, and sent a pass across the box to Fornals. Unlike his earlier effort that found nothing useful, this one went off the post and came straight out to Bowen who tapped it in to the open net.
West Ham 2
Wolves 0
At the moment, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say this last January transfer window might be the best one West Ham has had in some time. Bowen and Soucek have transformed our midfield. In the 66th minute, Masuaku won a corner, which happened to be the Hammer’s first of the evening. Cresswell took it and his outswinger found Soucek running to the near post. The Czech’s header took a deflection off of Jimenez and went through the arms of Patricio. It was eventually changed to an Own Goal, but I’m keeping it in Soucek’s account. Let the EPL fine me.
West Ham 3
Wolves 0
Wolves tried to get back into the match, but whenever someone in gold got on the ball two in claret and blue harassed them without mercy. From a formation and tactical standpoint, Moyes and his staff simply shut down a Wolves attack that had looked comfortable against us ever since they came back into the top flight. In fact, the minute Espírito Santo took off Traore and replaced him with a 17 year old newbie named Fabio, I thought the chances of a Wolves fight back diminished considerably.
In the final seconds of added time, Masuaku sent yet another cross into the box after using his skills to create space. Haller met the cross standing still, and just powered a header past Patricio to take his overall tally this season to five. As the announcer said, if he had gotten that kind of service last season he may never have lost his starting spot.
Final Score
West Ham 4
Wolves 0
The Newcastle result and effort was poor. Arsenal was far better. Today was very, very good. So on the whole, West Ham have looked more like the club that came out of lockdown than the inept train wreck we always fear will emerge. If we had even somewhat competent leadership at the top I’d be understanding of our lack of transfer activity. But we all know this board spends money haphazardly more often than they do intelligently.
I warned you at the beginning I wasn’t in a great mood.
This helped.