Happy New Year to all readers, authors, contributors and lurkers on WHTID! May 2021 be a better, more sociable, more enjoyable year for all of us. I wish everybody on here health, peace of mind and valuable time with loved ones in abundance.
I don’t know about you, but my New Year’s Eve was not really much to write home about, nevermind write about it on a football blog. I will do so anyway…;-)
Lockdown meant I was “celebrating“ alone in my flat. Eating a very modest meal (smoked fish, oven baguettes), alone. Having a midnight drink and the customary HNY donut, on the Jack. Watching a few isolated and grossly illegal fireworks (Covid restrictions!) explode with bright colours across a clear East Hamburg sky from my balcony, you guessed it, on my own.
And, just like that, 2021 had arrived. A new year. Starting with a matchday as well, Everton away. Tough fixture.
Yet we somehow nicked this from The Toffees on their own manor. Not quite sure how we did it, but we got all three points against a very strong Everton team who looked decidedly average though when faced with our newly discovered super-solid defensive formation and shape, marshalled by the two experienced heads of Ogbonna and Dawson.
It didn’t even matter much that Fabianski wasn’t available in goal after feeling something in his thigh during the warm up before the game. Randolph stepped in and hardly had anything to do for 93 minutes.
I remember only one proper save he had to make.
And he did so without much fuss. So, even if Fabianski was to miss three or four weeks, which doesn’t seem to be the case now as our favourite Pole will apparently resume training this week, there is no longer a Roberto Mk II scenario looming large at West Ham.
First of all because Randolph is a better goalkeeper than Roberto to begin with. But that’s not even the key point.
We look decent at the back now, almost regardless of who our defenders actually are which will make life a lot easier for any goalkeeper, be he Darren Randolph or David Martin.
And let us briefly look at Craig Dawson and his contributions so far. Not the most elegant or naturally gifted player you’ll ever see gracing the pitches of the Premier League. He arrived against the backdrop of a plethora of shaking heads within our collective fanbase, being seen as a cheap and, frankly, useless loan signing, a panic addition in the transfer window to merely make up the numbers in a very depleted squad.
And yet, after a mere two games, we have already seen him click with the likes of Angelo Ogbonna and Vlad Coufal. Two tough away fixtures, two clean sheets, four points. Can’t ask much more from a centre back.
Dawson’s highlight reels will never feature tons of killer crosses, backheel passes or body swerves sending his opponent for a hot dog.
That’s not his job.
He is a no-nonsense tackler, an honest grafter straight from the “Ginger Pele School of Defending and Clearing Balls out of Danger“.
I can see why he’s a Moyes type of player and I reckon Dawson will help us to keep more clean sheets this season and maintain a positive goal difference. And according to Moyes Dawson has impressed in training sessions as well, showing great application and character while waiting for his chance to play.
I have no idea what had happened to Dawson when he was on the floor for 2-3 minutes in the first half against Everton, not moving at all as if struck by lightning. But he continued playing after that little break and carried on like that incident had never happened at all. Weird!
Maybe it was the excitement of playing football again, not just that, but starting two games in quick succession! It’s possible his system couldn’t quite handle that…luckily it was nothing a short breather and maybe a
clandestine chunk of granola bar couldn’t fix.
Dawson looks like an extremely experienced, cheeky customer. He’s been around a lot of football pitches and must have seen it all. Now he has also seen Randolph keeping a first PL clean sheet for West Ham since April 2017 and Soucek chipping in with yet another crucial goal.
Who needs 20-goal-a-season strikers when you have a Czech scoring machine operating from midfield ?
Once again our substitutes made vital offensive contributions after coming on, with especially Yarmolenko having a hand, or rather foot, in the creation of the winning goal. Then again, he also gave the ball away cheaply prior to that, with a ridiculous backheel attempt of a pass the like of which you may try when you’re 3:0 up, but not with the score evenly balanced at 0:0.
Yarmolenko could have lost us a crucial away point, he ended up helping us to win all three.
It was brilliant to see Soucek running into the box full of desire and determination and hence benefitting from a healthy slice of luck, with the ball falling pretty much into his lap after a hellbraun deflection off an Everton player.
Sous Chef really made his own luck in that situation and it was nice to see him being rewarded in this fashion.
Soucek’s post-match interview was fantastic too as he was talking about previous winter breaks as a footballer in the Czech Republic where it’s apparently tradition around this time of year to stuff your face with copious amounts of potato salad. (In Germany you tend to add a boiled Knackwurst/sausage to that.)
Which prompted some fans to immediately put up recipes for Czech-style potato salad all over social media. I fully expect a video on the West Ham OS soon with Soucek and Coufal preparing and enjoying a big, claret bowl of the stuff while sharing jokes and anecdotes about their careers at West Ham so far…
My quick customary paragraph on Seb Haller: This was not a good game from him, effort was decent, but like it was our tendency in the first half, he wasted a good scoring opportunity, making things too complicated when it was probably easier to just go with instinct and take a shot. He really wasn’t effective as a striker in this one. The ball unfortunately is just not bouncing right for him at West Ham. He can’t be happy with the way things are going for him. I don’t see a way anymore for Haller to become a success for the Hammers. With the price tag of 45m quid attached to him
he always had a mountain to climb.
Congratulations anyway, Seb Haller, on winning MOTD Goal of the Month December for your stunning overhead kick against Palace!
When Moyes brought Antonio on for Haller this to me very much proved that our gaffer hasn’t really got the intention to play Antonio and Haller together. Which in my view he absolutely should. At least against sides like Burnley or West Brom.
I think it would be an extremely fruitful combination, that. But if Moyes is unwilling to give that one a try, well, then we might as well move Haller on this month, no matter how much money we’re losing in the process. It’s not fair on the player and probably better for West Ham as well in the grand scheme of things. Let’s see if we can bring in another striker more suited to the way we roll and how he is going to fare when called upon.
The Everton win has been a brilliant start for West Ham in 2021, not just because of the three points as such, but it came against one of the better sides in the PL this season. We are not always beautiful to watch, but we’re hard to beat. At last!
Looking at our upcoming fixtures and bearing in mind there is a bit of a break now (with the cup game against Stockport coming up first next Monday), we should be in a position to approach our next few games with renewed confidence and swagger. Plus a hopefully full squad to pick from with the exception of the recuperating Masuaku who may need another four weeks or so before being available for selection again.
As I am not expecting a lot of activity in terms of January transfers for West Ham this time around since we are in no danger of relegation, I would rather be focussing on West Ham trying to find a formation in training that is going to help us score more goals in the actual matches.
Coupled with our solidity at the back this would allow us to really set up base camp in the top half of the table for the remainder of the season.
Not a bad way for the year 2021 to endear itself to Hammers fans everywhere! COYI!!!
PS. Who of you was the kind soul who years ago sent me the matchday programme of the first West Ham game I attended ? (Man City at home in March 1996)
I know he mentioned the fact casually in a comment on the blog last month or so but I don’t remember in which thread or if it even was on one of my articles or that of a fellow author. I really must make a mental note to buy that guy dinner when we meet in person, be that in London or during a visit to Hamburg…
Hamburg football update: Believe it or not, the Bundesliga 2 has also been in action on the first weekend of 2021. Hamburg SV had a fairly easy task (at least on paper) playing Jahn Regensburg at home.
It was not as much a walk in the park as the 3:1 scoreline might suggest, but after their fourth win in a row HSV have retaken top spot in the table from fellow Northerners Holstein Kiel.
St.Pauli however had to try to turn their fortunes around by playing away at promotion-chasing Greuther Fürth (who have apparently managed to attract a few WHTID readers as new supporters in recent weeks due to their name). As expected it turned out to be a losing battle for the “Boys in Brown“ as Fürth won 2:1.
St.Pauli are still in 19th place, with dark clouds of relegation fear forming over the Reeperbahn. While Fürth in 3rd place are now breathing down hard on HSV’s neck…