Premier League Match 19 - Southampton 1 West Ham 2

Nathan's "Goal of the Season" Contender Not Enough for Saints

Wasn’t it nice to go through Christmas day and actually be looking forward to the football as part of the festivities. A bit of a shame that it couldn’t be on Boxing Day itself but never mind - tonight will do. Make no mistake about it, West Ham are a good side this year with a good manager in Manuel Pellegrini and some excellent players with Felipe Anderson looking worth every penny of the £40 million they paid for him. Up front they have Janvier Hernandez scoring goals and at the other end, one of the best goalkeeper is in the Premier league last year in Lukas Fabianski who was far too good for the relegated Swansea side he played for. West Ham also have Andy bloody Carroll who of course always scores against us and usually picks the two games against Southampton to be two of the three games a season he is fit for. He’s been coming off the bench recently so it will be an interesting addition to Jannik Vestergaard’s experience of the English game when Carroll makes an appearance.

As I said in the last blog, Saints fans are now looking forward to the rest of the season. West Ham have won four out of the last five games with the one defeat being last week at home to Watford. If Hughes was still in charge then I believe the best we would be hoping for from this game is a point but there is optimism in the fan base now as well as a few thousand more turning up tonight that would have been the case under Hughes.

Unfortunately, Captain Hojbjerg managed to get his fifth booking of the season against Huddersfield so he will be missing tonight but we have a ready-made replacement in Mario Lemina.  Hojbjerg’s role as captain went to Oriol Romeu which brings full circle, the renaissance of the Spaniard and I for one am really pleased for him.  In the event, Lemina for Hojbjerg was the only change in the starting line-up with JWP and Elyounoussi making it back as far as the bench with Michael Obafemi dropping out, presumably injured. West Ham have got so many injuries that they only had six substitutes so allegedly they only have 17 fit players and one of those is Andy Carroll.

We tear into them from the start and have the first chance on a about a minute as Armstrong puts Targett away behind Antonio (who is at right back) and his cross finds Redmond who hits it first time but straight at Fabianski.  Targett is soon in action again but at the other end of the pitch, playing a virtual airshot instead of clearing it and that horrible wasp-faced twat Snodgrarse cuts in from the right and tries to left footed curler which is also straight at the keeper.

After about 15 minutes, West Ham have got a foothold in the game and start to boss it.  Valery is exposed down our right with Cresswell and Anderson running at him and no help on offer from our midfield or anyone else for that matter.  Cresswell pulls a cross back to Perez, who used to be be at Arsenal and now looks like he’s wearing a wig and he scuffs a dreadful effort from 10 yards wide of the far post. A huge let-off

Long time readers of this blog will remember me talking about the Chuckle Brothers who sat behind me in the Kingsland and talked utter shite and moaned at everything from first minute to last.  Well… directly behind me today and two people who could possibly be father and daughter but for the sake of this they are Mr and Mrs Arsehole.  They usually sit about 4 seats along so I can ignore or not hear much of what they say but today they’re right behind me and it’s utter bollocks. It’s the classic screech ‘THAT’S A CLEAR PENALTY REF I CAN SEE IT FROM HERE!!!’.  Having seen the replay of Ings trying to get on the end of Targett’s cross and Antonio’s arm in his back – maybe Mr Arsehole does indeed have x-ray Superman vision and can see from Chapel to Northam.  Maybe he should be the referee instead of Craig Pawson.  I’d take that as Craig couldn’t possibly be as irritating a twat.

West Ham have a final chance before half time with Snodgrarse again trying the left footed curler which goes wide this time but overall I’m pleased to get to half time at 0-0.  It looks like more of the same at the start of the second half and out of nowhere really, the most scrappy-arsed goal you’ve ever seen.  Valery starts it off in the right, looking like he’s going to lose the ball but somehow he stumbles past three challenges and then gives it away and a West Ham clearance is shocking and goes straight to Lemina.  His cross is headed down by Targett and after scuffers from Armstrong and Romeu, the ball breaks to Redmond.  West Ham have assumed it’s offside but Targett is on the deck and not involved.  Redmond hits it, saved, Romeu tries to chip the keeper, saved and then Redmond piles in with a Hammers defender and it goes in off his hand as he’s bundled to the ground.  Could be a penalty, could be handball and if VAR was in place it would take about an hour to sort it out but it’s given as a goal and we’re somehow 1-0 up.  Can we keep it?

No.   The complaints over our goal have barely stopped before Anderson and Cresswell again gang up on Valery.  Anderson to Cresswell, back to Anderson and he smashes it near post and like at Huddersfield it flies past Bednarek and McCarthy sees it late and it flies in at the near post – fuck.  Poor defending, poor goalkeepering and too easy.

Andy Carroll comes on for West Ham and his first aerial challenges sees Romeu comes off worse and holding his head and implying an elbow.  The referee is having none of it though.  His next action is to slide through Romeu and it’s a clear booking but no. Meanwhile, Armstong cuts in from the left and tries a curler to the far post which Fabianski gets across to and we win a corner.  Over it comes from Targett and Bednarek is wrestled to the ground by Rice who is practically on top of him.  Mr Arsehole behind me is not really interested in this on despite it being right in front of us and of course, West Ham break from the non-decision, Antonio finds Anderson and he aint gonna miss.  Bang, 2-1.

We need a goal so of course, we don’t need Shane Long but he’s on first for the clearly knackered Ings with half an hour to go.  Targett sends another cross low across the goal and Long slides in at the near post and misses it.  Up the other end, Vestergaard has to throw himself at Perez as he once more fastens on to another Anderson pass.  To be honest, they look much more likely to score than we do.  Austin is on for Yoshida as Ralph goes for it his first involvement is to try a horrible dive which Mr and Mrs Arsehole scream ‘CLEAR FOUL REFFFFF!!!’ in screechy fashion.  The ref is appalling to be fair and Carroll takes out Lemina off the ball and once more, Pawson ignores it.

Long and Redmond combine to give Lemina a chance but Fabianski again saves his effort and it was offside anyway.  We reach 90 and there are 4 minutes extra but we barely touch the ball in these 4 minutes.  West Ham manage to get Anderson through again and his attempt at a hat-trick is blocked by McCarthy.

The main thing you have to say about this game is that the better team won. West Ham looked quicker and sharper and physically stronger than us and no one can have any complaints about the result. Having said that, we could easily have sneaked an undeserved win. How Craig Pawson can be looking straight at Declan Rice wrestling Jan Bednarek to the ground in the penalty area and not give a penalty is completely beyond me. Of course, West Ham broke from that incident and scored the winning goal.  Could have been 2-1 to us, ended up 2-1 to them.

Today illustrated to me some of the limitations in our squad and whilst Ralph can make a huge difference, he can’t turn average players into good players overnight. With Obafemi out injured, the only pace we had on the bench was Shane Long and he was the first substitute used tonight and if I’m being polite, Shane was poor. If I’m not being polite then he was utterly fucking bollocks. My favourite moment was his Jack Russell impression where he just chased his first touch across the pitch until it ran out for West Ham throw-in after bounced off his knee. It was embarrassing.  I know Ralph wants players who can run but hopefully he’ll see that that’s all Shane can do.  Nice lad, wants to do well, fans want him to do well, tries hard but no.

Also struggling today was Matt Targett.  We tend to think of him as being a youngster in the tradiotional ‘just out of the Academy’ sense but he is not, he is 23 now and should not be putting in for performances where he looks like a nervous 16-year-old making his debut. He produced some good attacking play and put over a couple of really good crosses, admittedly mixed in with some poor ones but he looks like an eight-year-old when it came to defending, dithering when there was a tackle to be made and failing to get back into position quickly enough.  Elsewhere they were poor-ish games for Ings and Armstrong who were both ok in the first half but both completely died in the second half and Mario Lemina  had a terrible game, rekindling memories of his shite ‘why am I here?’ performances last season.  Maybe the fact that Hojbjerg is Ralph’s captain and Romeu is his vice-captain played on his mind a bit.  Yan Valery was given a tough time by Felipe Anderson out on our right but overall I didn’t think he did too badly given that he was left completely exposed time and again with Cresswell and Anderson running at him at times. Alex McCarthy let in another goal that he won’t be happy with. Admittedly, Anderson was not close down particularly well for the first goal but it’s another one that’s being McCarthy on his nearside and unless about 100 years of goalkeeping wisdom has changed (as certain sections of Twitter seem to think), that isn’t good.

It wasn’t all bad with the decent performances coming from the defenders with Bednarek, Yoshida and particularly Vestergaard having good matches. Captain Romeu in midfield justified Ralph’s faith in him and never stopped but he was more or less on his own in there and if you want to play a high intensity game, the midfield has to be on it from first minute to last. Again, Nathan Redmond was our best attacking player and deserved his goal even if it was in the end, a scrappy load of bollocks that went in off his arm.

As a team, I think we look knackered from about the 20th minute onwards. The lack of fitness which is been allowed to develop under the last two managers means that whilst there were initial benefits of Ralph’s methods, some players looked absolutely out on their feet today. I also think today was a reminder that we are not suddenly going to win the vast majority of our matches and smash our way up the league and finish in the top half. It’s going to be a struggle this season and there are going to be setbacks like this one.  We weren't bad but we weren't great either and came up against a better side today.  It happens.  We are playing a long game and this season will always just be about staying up with the real benefit hopefully to be felt after next summer.

With our next two games being Manchester City and Chelsea, if we can get past those two games and not be in the bottom three then we will have done pretty well and be in a decent enough position to ensure we are nowhere near the bottom come the end of the season.

West Ham had some quality performers out there tonight with Declan Rice being the pick of the bunch despite his penalty area wrestling. We just couldn’t deal with the pace and power provided by the likes of him, Antonio, Ogbonna , Diop , Anderson, Diangana and Obiang. When West Ham get a few of their players back then Pellegrini should be able to get them very close to the top six. You have to remember that the guy who scored the goals for them today cost £40 million quid. Having players like that is a huge advantage.  I guess you can afford £40 million for a player when the taxpayer has paid for your ground.  He wouldn’t be with them if they were still at Upton Park – that’s for sure.

Talking of unfair advantages, Manchester City are next. Unbelievably, they have lost their last two games at home to Crystal Palace and the way to Leicester. If we can make it three on the bounce for them, it would be nothing short of a miracle to rival the virgin birth which allegedly happened a few thousand years ago around this time of year.