20. Chelsea (a) 3-2 : 2002/03 Premier League
(Defoe (40), Di Canio (49, 84) - Hasselbaink (21 p), Zola (74))
(Defoe (40), Di Canio (49, 84) - Hasselbaink (21 p), Zola (74))
In 2001, popular and populist manager Harry Redknapp was sacked by chairman Terry Brown and eventually replaced by lugubrious coach Glenn Roeder. Despite a drastically low set of expectations, Roeder steered us to a seventh place finish and in truth it looked like there were a lot of building blocks for the future. Youngsters Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and Jermain Defoe were emerging, Glen Johnson was on the way and England internationals Trevor Sinclair and David James were in place to complement the excellent strike pair of Paolo di Canio and Frederic Kanoute.
The idea that we could get relegated in 2003 with that squad still seems absurd, but we somehow managed it, and an entire generation of outstanding youth players was wasted. However, one of the few bright spots in the season came in September when we travelled to high flying Chelsea, bottom of the league and still searching for our first win.
Not pictured - Gary Breen, supreme
Things started poorly when Scott Minto conceded a ludicrously soft penalty and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink scored his customary goal against us. Substitute Defoe snuffled an equaliser just before half time and then shortly after the interval Di Canio scored one of the best goals I've ever seen when he flicked up a loose ball with his right foot and smashed it home from thirty yards with his left. Even now, it perplexes me why that goal doesn't feature in more Premier League "Best of..." compilations.
Minto carried on his tremendous day at the office by needlessly fouling Gianfranco Zola with a quarter of an hour to go and the Italian punished him with a glorious free kick. Di Canio, however, was not to be denied and with minutes to go he profited from some marvellously Mighty Ducks style Chelsea defending to pilfer a winning goal. This match was also notable for being the only time that Gary Breen would ever play well for us. What. A. Day.
(Lanzini (3), Noble (29), Sakho (90))
When looking for reasons why Slaven Bilic remains so beloved by West Ham fans despite presiding over some truly abysmal football teams, I think you have to look at games like this. West Ham, incredibly, had not won at Anfield since 1962 before this game, which is the kind of losing record that you typically only see in wrestling where the matches are actually fucking fixed and one party isn't trying.
But in 2015/16 both ourselves and Liverpool were different animals than we'd seen before or after. We had Dimitri Payet, while Brendan Rodgers was trying to mould a team while Simon Mignolet was in goal for him. Tough gig.
We started brightly with Manuel Lanzini scoring after just three minutes on his full debut, and Mark Noble adding a second on the half hour after a wonderfully slapdash bit of defending from Dejan Lovren that was part falling over and part performative dance. Philippe Coutinho was then correctly sent off for a stupid lunge on Payet, which referee Kevin Friend decided to even up by sending off Noble for a perfectly fair tackle later on. It seems you still have to knock the big boys out to get a draw in the Premier League.
Diafra Sakho then broke away to score a last minute third and seal a 3-0 win at Anfield, which is the kind of sentence that thousands of West Ham fans thought they would never see in print.
(Jones (37), Morley (60 p, 73), Marsh (80) - Sheringham (66 p))
Another day, another highly enjoyable visit to White Hart Lane. I think this Easter Monday victory lives long in the memory as it allowed thousands of teenage Hammers like me to strut around the various schools and workplaces of Essex and East London for quite a while, such was the comprehensive nature of our win.
Things started cagily, with West Ham probably needing a win to be sure of avoiding relegation in our first Premier League season, and Spurs dangerously close to being pulled into the dogfight themselves. Peter Butler was injured early on and replaced by Steve Jones, which proved to be the turning point as he quickly ran on to an Ian Bishop through ball and smashed home his most famous goal for us.
On the hour mark, Trevor Morley conned Kevin Scott into fouling him in the area and picked himself up to give us a two goal lead from the spot. Feeling the game needed an injection of life, Morley then went up the other end and gave away a penalty of his own to allow Teddy Sheringham to pull one back for the home team.
I'm pretty sure this is Mike Marsh
However, with Bishop having a masterful game in the middle we never really looked like losing and Morley soon added a second after some more Ardilesian defending from Gary Mabbutt. Mike Marsh, another underrated signing, would add a late fourth as Spurs simply abandoned the notion of defending and we coasted to a thumping victory that left Spurs in 15th place and just three points above the relegation zone. Sadly, they would survive but it was enjoyably close for a while there.
Back in 2001 the footballing world was a vastly different place. A year earlier Manchester United had withdrawn from the FA Cup in order to play in the FIFA World Club Championship and been pilloried for the decision. Unpopular anyway, this was seen as the ultimate snook cocking and a bridge too far for the English media. In typically modest fashion, United continued to refer to themselves as the holders of the trophy having won it in 1999 and their reputation was further enhanced when it emerged that they had already booked their favourite hotel in Wales for May, in anticipation of making the final again in Cardiff.
When we were drawn against them in the Fourth Round it was a genuinely huge game, shifted to the Sunday to be covered by ITV and West Ham were given 9,000 tickets for the match. Alex Ferguson picked his strongest side, which was borderline unbeatable at the time, while we sweated over injuries to Shaka Hislop and Frederic Kanoute. The Mali striker was crucial as without him we tended to all but disappear in away games.
Paolo, relaxing
Still, the omens weren't all that great with our back five containing the octogenarian pairing of Stuart Pearce and Nigel Winterburn, and Hislop patently unable to kick a ball. With United hammering at us early on, it never really felt like we were going to win and indeed most fans were having post traumatic flashbacks to our 7-1 defeat there a year before.
However, the key to the victory was our brilliant homegrown midfield of Frank Lampard, Joe Cole and Michael Carrick. As Jacob Steinberg observed in The Guardian when he described this as his favourite West Ham game, the great sadness was that this performance heralded an end and not a beginning. The young trio controlled the game and gave us the platform to grow into the game and eventually steal a late winner.
The goal itself is pretty famous, as Kanoute freed Paolo di Canio who ran into the box, ignored Fabien Barthez trying to tell him he was offside and slotted home the winner. We would be drawn away at Sunderland next, who were actually second in the league at the time, and beat them too before losing a borderline Shakespearean home quarter final to Spurs.
I actually didn't even bother to apply for a ticket to this game, such was my pessimism, and I got what I deserved as I had to watch on TV with the rest of the world. When we were drawn at Old Trafford again a couple of years later I made sure I didn't miss out.
We lost 6-0.
Sometimes God is a little too on the nose, you know. Still, Let's All Do The Barthez.
(Antonio (67))
It's not often that football games live all that long in the memory. They feel important and substantial and then another one arrives five days later and suddenly that's the only game that matters. The value we ascribe to certain fixtures is rarely, if ever matched by their real life impact. It's therefore sometimes the case that you need a bit of history alongside the actual game to make it truly stick in the mind.
So, what sets this 1-0 victory at White Hart Lane apart from the equivalent Dani game in 1996? Well, for a start this game was played in a totally different stadium. Having "lost" their attempt to win the Olympic Stadium and then benefitting from a weirdly fortuitous set of fires on land where they wanted to build, Spurs then spent $1 billion on building their new, incredible home. It might feature a cheese room, and ludicrous, unnecessary extras but it is undeniably an astonishing place to watch football, and will stand as an eternal monument to the half arsed job that was done on our new place.
But if the stadia aren't comparable then all that remained was for us to go and make the pitch our own. And with Spurs unbeaten in their new home with no goals conceded, that looked a pretty formidable ask for Manuel Pellegrini's new look West Ham, who had picked up just one point from their previous eight away games and were struggling to cope with their managers indecipherable prognostications about having a "big club mentality".
However, with Spurs focusing half an eye on their Champions League semi final with Ajax, it's also true that this was a good time to be playing them even if they did play their best available team. The game started in a characteristically frenetic style and Spurs edged a first half in which our influential forward Marko Arnautovic touched the ball just seven times. He would make up for this in the second period however, alongside Mark Noble who simply took the game over and began to pull the strings in the same way as Bishop in 1994.
Eventually, on 67 minutes, Arnautovic got free on the right, picked out Michail Antonio and the striker smashed home the first opposition goal at the new White Hart Lane, and then celebrated by pretending to hump a donkey on a space hopper. As you do.
Things got a bit Twilight Zone thereafter when the two best chances in the rest of the game fell to our marauding centre back Issa Diop and an enthusiastic amateur footballer by the name of Vincent Janssen who won a competition to play up front for Spurs for the final twenty minutes.
Still, we held on and, as with The Emirates, planted an eternal flag as the deserved first winners at the new North London stadium. We were all also introduced to those to two Spurs lads who film themselves watching matches and, well, more from them later.
(Boa Morte (30), Benayoun (57), Harewood (82))
I don't know if you guys recall this, but there was a stage in the 2006/07 season when it seemed like we might go down. In fact, after a Wes Craven directed last minute defeat to Spurs in March we were bottom of the league, 11 points from safety, without an away win all season and facing a run-in that involved trips to Arsenal and Manchester United. So, in summary, we were fucked.
To add to the mess, controversial summer signing Carlos Tevez had still not scored all season and his pal Javier Mascherano was apparently stuffing his face with pizza in a Docklands flat having failed to displace Hayden Mullins from our midfield. Still, by the time we got to Wigan, things were slightly brighter after unlikely wins over Blackburn Rovers, Everton and Arsenal, sandwiched around a truly awful defeat at relegation rivals Sheffield United.
At one point it looked as though Tevez might not play in this game as the club had to mount the first of several legal defences regarding the validity of his registration. They emerged triumphant - in a fashion - with a record £5.5m fine, and the Argentine played and starred in this remarkable win.
Things began with a huge army of Hammers heading north on coaches paid for by the players, at the arrangement of Lucas Neill and Nigel Reo-Coker. With around 7,000 fans packed in behind the goal there was a tangible fission of excitement on the air. A win would pull us level with Wigan and put increasing pressure on the likes of the faltering Sheffield United and Fulham.
Boa Morte scores. Horsemen of the Apocalypse on their way
After an opening half an hour where we were well on top, Neill launched a through ball for Luis Boa Morte to run on to. Wigan keeper John Filan weighed up all possible options and chose the worst one available by running directly at Boa Morte, who lobbed him for his first goal in claret and blue. He would literally have been better off doing The Barthez,
Bobby Zamora could have made it two before half time, but we would soon seal the win with a fabulous breakaway goal where Tevez, Zamora and George McCartney would combine to set up Yossi Benayoun. Substitute Marlon Harewood added a late third, and The Great Escape was well and truly on.
In the end, Sheffield United would end up being relegated, which I'm sure everyone would agree was a shame. Oddly, the long trip home was punctuated by seeing demoralised Charlton Athletic fans who had travelled to watch their team play at Blackburn Rovers as part of Alan Pardew's inspired "Operation Ewood" escape plan. They lost 4-1.
Our karmic retribution would come in the summer when Henry Winter, Neil Warnock and a confused judge would request we pay £25m to Sheffield United over the Tevez affair. Still, we'll always have that goal from Luis Boa Morte.
(Kouyate (43), Zarate (57))
Back to 2015/16 and back to those improbable away results conjured up by Slaven Bilic. On the opening day we made the short trip to The Emirates where it was reasonable to assume that we were going to get our usual hiding at the hands of Arsene Wenger's men, especially as we had only just returned from being dumped out of Europe at the hands of Romanian powerhouse Astra Giurgiu, or Astra Fucking Goo Goo to give them their full title. While it's true that the Arsenal of 2015 wasn't the Arsenal of 2005 it is also true that they weren't the shower that we've seen parading around the Premier League recently, so we were heavy underdogs.
The game was an entertaining affair, played out in bright sunshine and with a pleasing flow. New signing Angelo Ogbonna was rock solid at the back, while 16 year old Reece Oxford made Mesut Ozil disappear long before it became as fashionable as it is now. But the real star was new boy Dimitri Payet, who played in a nominal left wing role and was simply majestic. He crossed just before half time for Cheikhou Kouyate to give us the lead, while Petr Cech conducted an experiment in finding out exactly how badly a goalkeeper could misjudge a dive.
The Czech's misery continued later when Mauro Karate fired past him from twenty yards and we hung on to seal a comfortable win. Notably Matt Jarvis and Kevin Nolan appeared as late substitutes, signifying a kind of handover from the old Allardyce era to what seemed like it might be a sun drenched modern adventure under Bilic. We lost 4-3 to Bournemouth a week later. Never change, lads.
(Son (1), Kane (8, 16) - Balbuena (82), Sanchez (OG 85), Lanzini (90))
Oh baby. Lanziniiiiiiiiiiii!
You shouldn't really have a draw this high in a list of your greatest games, but then again you shouldn't draw a game where you are three goals down with eight minutes to play. For all those hundreds of games we watch and attend, for all those insipid defeats and tedious draws that we immediately consign to the wastepaper bin of history, it only takes one game like this to make you remember precisely why you first fell in love with the game. Football, bloody hell.
To the neutral this must have been a bizarre match to watch. Spurs opened the scoring within a minute when we decided not to bother tackling Heung Min-Son, and Harry Kane soon added another couple. All three goals were brilliantly conceived and executed and at that point for West Ham fans it was simply a case of how many more they would score, and how much longer we would be able to keep watching.
But Jose Mourinho isn't a coach to ever let loose the handbrake and David Moyes has imbued his team with a steel that hasn't been seen in a West Ham team for quite some time. Even at 3-0 we were still playing alright, with the obvious caveat that the home team had mostly gone into a mode of containment and were content to wait for chances to hit us on the break. As it was, Kane was denied a perfect hat trick by the post, and then everything went...nuts.
Manuel Lanzini. I love you
First, Fabien Balbuena made up for some questionable defending on the Son goal to head a consolation, and then Andriy Yarmolenko and Vladimir Coufal combined to force Davinson Sanchez to head a bit more consolation into his own net, and suddenly we had five minutes of hope left. The pivotal moment arrived when keen golfer and amateur footballer Gareth Bale went through and ruined his coming home party by shooting wide with the goal at his mercy. Reprieved, we went up the other end and with four minutes of added time already in the book Manuel Lanzini smashed home a thirty yarder off the underside of the bar, Moyes did a little jig on the touchline, we all felt extremely consoled and Mourinho took it all with the customary good grace for which he is famous. Oh, to have been in the away end when that went in.
Better still, whenever I think of this game I am reminded of this - the best, and most dramatically executed headphone push of all time.
INJECT IT INTO MY VEINS 💉💉💉 pic.twitter.com/HAVVqS2zeZ
— Chris Scull (@cjscull) October 18, 2020
No. No. No. No. NO. NO!
(Reo-Coker (25), Zamora (32), Etherington (80) - Henry (45), Pires (89))
Another entry into the history books and arguably the most unlikely victory on this list. In 2006, Arsenal were in the middle of Arsene Wenger's reign and as strong as ever. Filled with world class superstars, they were especially formidable at Highbury in their final season there before moving to The Emirates. They would lose just two home league games all season and this, famously, was one.
We weren't in great shape going in to this game as we had no right back, with Tomas Repka having headed back to the Czech Republic a couple of weeks previously, and were thus forced to deploy the extremely left footed Clive Clarke there. Things began predictably as Arsenal swarmed all over us, and Robin van Persie slammed a strike against the woodwork, but having battled through the initial flurry we broke away and took the lead as Sol Campbell channelled his inner Gary Breen and Nigel Reo-Coker snatched an opener. Seven minutes later Bobby Zamora slapped Campbell around like a piñata and curled home a beautiful second and all of a sudden it was one of those nights.
Arsenal, however, remained Arsenal and Thierry Henry snatched one back on the stroke of half time to keep us all fidgeting. On another day the immense pressure applied to us in the second half would have seen a comfortable Arsenal win but between a heroic defensive performance, Shaka Hislop's heroics and some good old fashioned luck we kept them at bay. With just ten minutes left, Reo-Coker won the ball back high up the pitch and set up Matthew Etherington whose shot deflected twice on its way in. Sometimes it's just meant to be.
Robert Pires did score in the 89th minute because why not, but we held on for a famous win and became the last away team to win at Highbury. Deliciously, we would then become the first team to win at The Emirates where Zamora bagged us a 1-0 win the following season as part of The Great Escape in another game that narrowly failed to make this list.
(Sinclair (35), Moncur (43), Di Canio (65 p), J Cole (70), Lampard (83) - Windass (30), Beagrie (44 p), Lawrence (47, 51)
I know what you're thinking - just another typical 1-0 down, 2-1 up, 4-2 down, 5-4 victory. But this might be the definitive game of the Harry Redknapp era as it showcased almost everything good and bad about that time. We began the game in 10th position with the sense of yet another lost season hanging over the ground. Our main focus had been on the League Cup where we made a run to the quarter finals and actually beat Aston Villa in a thrilling, pulsating game that ended up being settled on penalties.
In the purest West Ham fashion imaginable we then ended up having to replay that match after it emerged that substitute Manny Omoyimni, who didn't actually touch the ball while on the pitch, had already played in the competition and was cup tied. Rather than chuck us out of the competition as they probably should have done, the league let us replay the game knowing full well that would be a more painful process, and they were right as we lost 3-1 and Paolo di Canio missed a fateful penalty.
By the time Shaka Hislop broke his leg two minutes into this game it seemed like more of the same. On came the much hyped young reserve goalkeeper Stephen Bywater, who looked like he was borrowing his big brothers kit, and played like he was wearing his mums oven gloves.
Incredibly the game was still goalless on the half hour mark when Dean Windass headed in a corner with Bywater rooted to his line. Trevor Sinclair quickly equalised before John Moncur got in on the act with a screamer of a goal to give us the lead and then immediately conceded a soft penalty that Peter Beagrie put away.
The key observation from those of us in the ground at this point was that in order to win the game it seemed pretty imperative that everybody did their best to ensure Bywater wasn't required to touch the ball for the rest of the match as he appeared never to have seen one before. Sadly this ploy failed as Jamie Lawrence took advantage of two further howlers to give the visitors a (sort of) shock 4-2 lead.
While all this was going on Di Canio was engaged in a seemingly endless battle with referee Neale Barry as he was denied penalties on at least two occasions where the foul was certainly worse than Moncur's in the first half. After the second of this he ran across to the bench and demanded to be taken off, sitting down on the turf and generally turning in the kind of performance that would get you booed offstage in the West End for being too hammy. Instead of treating this as a shocking lack of professionalism everybody just shrugged and said "That's Paolo" and sang his name. {Insert eye roll gif}
Shortly after, Paul Kitson was fouled and the penalty was finally given. Nominated penalty taker Frank Lampard picked up the ball only to find Di Canio trying to wrestle it off him. Being a well run and thoroughly professional outfit everybody told Di Canio to piss off and reminded him that he'd missed his last penalty and wait, oh no, we let him take it because we're about as professional as your average Sunday League team.
Anyway, he scored and everyone sang his name so that was great. {Insert eye roll gif}. A few minutes later Trevor Sinclair set up Joe Cole for the equaliser, and with Bradford quite rightly still reasoning that if they could just get a shot on target they'd win, everybody stopped defending and it was all tremendous fun.
With seven minutes to go, Lampard got some sense of redemption when he picked up a Di Canio pass and smashed home a left footed winner from the edge of the box. What a springboard for the rest of the season, I hear you say. Not really, we lost 4-0 at home to Everton the next week.
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