West Ham 1 - 1 Bournemouth (And Other Ramblings)

"Why everything's turned inside out, instilling so much doubt
It makes me so tired, I feel so uninspired"
- Bic Runga, "Sway"

Thirty eight days.

Eleven games.

One replay.

120 minutes.

Ten injuries.

Zero new signings.

The sixth highest average attendance in Europe.

The thirteenth highest wage bill in Europe.

The tenth highest supporter spend in Europe.

The seventeenth highest revenues in Europe.

Still, Shrewsbury were well organised.

I don't think it should be too much of a surprise to anyone that we ran out of steam today. This was a team that was not so much running on empty, as crawling on their bloody hands and injured knees toward a far off oasis in the desert. Since playing Arsenal on December 13th we have been averaging two games a week and as a result our dressing room has a distinct ER vibe to it.

5.55pm. The West Ham dressing room. Gary Lewin - what a signing!

This week Manuel Lanzini and Aaron Cresswell hobbled off to join Jose Fonte, Winston Reid, Edmilson Fernandes, Andy Carroll, Diafra Sakho, {pauses - my fingers are cramping} Michail Antonio, Andre Ayew and Reece Oxford in the corridors of Whipps Cross Hospital, and as a result our bench was like a boyband audition. It is rarely promising when your substitutes are warming up while singing "Backstreet's Back".

Worse still was the news this morning that Marko Arnautovic will also miss significant time, with another hamstring related injury that we can't say we weren't warned about by Arsenal fans, after they had years of them under Gary Lewin.

But our failure to beat Bournemouth wasn't for a lack of effort, or indeed of quality, but more a lack of fit bodies able to summon up the necessary energy levels needed to influence games at this level. We dominated the opening exchanges of each half, but couldn't find the breach in the wall that would have allowed us to pour through. Bournemouth probably deserve some credit for that, as they defended stoutly, rode their luck and engaged in some typically world class shithousery.

But for all we might feel that we were the dominant force in the game, it is worth pointing out that we were dead on our feet for the last period. After Lanzini went off with the first hamstring injury heard all around the world, we retreated deeper and deeper and resorted to smashing the ball long in the vain hope that Javier Hernandez had transmogrified himself into Andy Carroll.

What all of this did was highlight the folly of this squad composition. Watching us put out a team at the moment is to be reminded of a Guy Ritchie thriller, in so much as the twists are inevitable and when it happens it's not actually thrilling. This is a disaster that has been months in the making and if you'll excuse me repeatedly beating this dead horse I see here in front of me, it is unbelievable that nobody at the club apparently saw this coming.

We regularly top the Premier League injury tables, sold off more players than we brought in, and overloaded ourselves in areas where we didn't need to by buying players wholly unsuited to our playing style. If this January goes the way we all think it will, then it would be the fifth consecutive transfer window where the recruitment team at West Ham has failed. That is some fucking record for people still in a job.

So while Joe Hart sits on our bench picking up a six figure weekly salary for being inferior to our current keeper, we are forced to turn to members of Blazin' Squad just to patch up our midfield with minutes to go in a crucial game against relegation rivals. I say again - it defies belief that apart from Bilic, those same people are still making the decisions about the composition of our playing staff.

So, as frustrating as this game was, I think this was a fair enough result given the circumstances. I couldn't fault the efforts of our exhausted players, and on another day with some better luck we might have been ahead at half time and given ourselves the opportunity to hit the visitors on the break. As it is, perhaps everyone at the club can resolve to never again approach a transfer window using the motto "Fortune Favours The Old".

***

"Lord, I tried enough, kept on hoping

Kept my fingers crossed, I tried everything I know"

- The Boothill Foot-Tappers, "Get Your Feet Out Of My Shoes"

After the game I was keen to see this Caley Graphics shot map as I was interested to see how many truly good chances we created. We had so much of the ball and pressed so well that it felt dominant, but I couldn't recall too many clear cut opportunities. For instance, Pablo Zabaleta picked out Marko Arnautovic with a fizzing first half cross and Asmir Begovic pulled off a great save to deny the Austrian, but in reality I'm not sure he could have done much more than he did, given that the ball arrived at such pace and through a crowd of defenders. It was straight at Begovic and he did well to tip it over.

As it turned out our best chance was probably when James Collins flicked a header across goal for the stretching Lanzini to miss by inches at the back post. I'm not sure it's a failure of xG as such, but chances like that don't get captured on the map above.

But what was most encouraging in this game doesn't really show up there either. Our football in the first half was as good as I've seen since Payet left, and perhaps better than anything we've produced since we played Chelsea off the park at Stamford Bridge in 2016. A game we drew, by the way. See if you can guess who refereed that day and awarded Chelsea a last minute penalty when Ruben Loftus Cheek fell over his own feet outside the box (*).

Arnautovic and Lanzini continued to show that quick thinking footballers able to carry the ball at pace will inevitably always pose a threat. Behind them our defensive pressing was outstanding, which meant that the visitors simply couldn't get out of their own half. Having Cresswell back helped as he snapped at the heels of attackers, and made sure that the distribution had a bit less of a "smacking golf balls into the sea" feel than it did when Collins and Ogbonna were having a go in his absence.

But as Begovic stood firm, we faded gradually because pressing with that intensity requires a team with an average age of lower than 54. Not long before half time I thought Bournemouth had scored when a well worked corner kick flashed narrowly wide, but in general it felt that we'd let them off the hook by not capitalising on that early pressure.

The second half, however, saw an upturn in fortunes as we pressed well once again and began creating lots of promising situations going forward. There was still frustration as we seemed to always be a slightly misplaced pass away from being in, but we still had enough ascendancy to feel like the late winner would be ours. Somewhat typically then, we conceded with twenty minutes to go as Ryan Fraser slipped into the right side centre half's channel and ran on to a lovely Junior Stanislas pass to drive home the opener. I thought Adrian got himself into a bit of a mess with his positioning and ended up in the middle of nowhere and pointless, like a footballing Creamfields if you will, but it was still a good finish. Sadly, this was another goal conceded between our golden oldies of Collins and Zabaleta and perhaps a salutary reminder that when half your back four qualifies for a free bus pass, it's probably not wise to leave them one on one with fast, nippy wingers.

Mercifully, Bournemouth then unveiled a flawless homage to Huddersfield as they allowed us to equalise directly from kick off, when an Ogbonna punt was flicked on by both Kouyate and Hernandez to Arnautovic. His shot was blocked by Ake but bounced up nicely for Hernandez who poked home from ten yards. If you haven't seen the goal, it is pretty much exactly what we signed him for, and an enduring reminder of the value of a goal poacher. Rather than being the springboard to a full blooded finale, however, it felt rather more like the culmination of a month's worth of Herculean effort. We faded badly, and were indebted to a couple of Adrian saves and some diffident finishing to hold out for a point. For all that the visitors looked dangerous and so, so pace on the break, in fairness, a defeat would have been wildly unjust.

(*) Bobby Madley. But you knew that. Even if you didn't.

***

"And I suppose that's the price you pay

Well, oh, it isn't what it was"

- Arctic Monkeys, "Leave Before the Lights Come On"

And now, at last, a break of sorts as we go to Wigan in the Cup. But for Lanzini that break will last for at least a month and for Arnautovic three weeks, and will rule them out of the vital home games with Crystal Palace and Brighton. With them goes all of our attacking drive, leaving us at the mercy of playing Hernandez or Ayew and all the evidence so far suggests that the lack of artistry will be painful, and that this will work out about as well as the time that Glen Roeder decided we didn't need any cover up front as we had Ian Pearce in case things got a bit hairy.

Shit

All of this seems to me to be an inevitable corollary of having to play such a ludicrous schedule, and using so few players in doing so. I know that some fans think it was worth risking or even sacrificing our Premier League status for a tilt at the FA Cup, and while I don't agree, I realise there are many that do.

But this is the cost.

Lanzini played the full 120 minutes in the midweek game against Shrewsbury, and Arnautovic came on as a substitute and when the body is pushed to those sorts of limits then you see muscle injuries occur. In any other year, with a better constructed squad and more cover and with the league not being so tightly contested I would be the first to demand a cup challenge, but none of that is the case right now. It is to the eternal shame of the club, but we simply don't have the playing resources to compete on two fronts at the moment.

I think, therefore, that this has been the first misstep that Moyes has made, and by overplaying the likes of Lanzini, Arnautovic, Ogbonna, Masuaku, Kouyate and Obiang he opened us up to an unnecessary and potentially fatal risk of being without them in games that really matter. It is my fervent hope that when that team is announced at Wigan on Saturday that the most common response from most us will be "who?"

What is particularly painful about losing Lanzini and Arnautovic is that their nascent partnership was just starting to take shape. I'm not sure I really believe that there is anything much more to it than just the simple fact that they are both classy players who understand the way in which the other is trying to work. Those movements into space that each of them can read before the other does it - to me that's just what good players do, and they do it better than any of our other strikers.

Presumably we will now see Hernandez return, at which point I suspect we will see the canny interplay disappear, as we will simply have to try and figure out ways of getting the ball into the box at the earliest opportunity for the Mexican to try and latch on to. My worry about that is that it places too much burden on uncreative players to do the creating, but also that we've been so ineffective when Hernandez has been on the pitch. This is primarily because he likes to play high, and off the last defender and he's not really into the idea of mazy dribbles and quick one twos that pull defences open. At present our most inventive attacking threat is probably Arthur Masuaku. Let's all take a moment shall we.

With our yeoman midfield behind providing stability but not much attacking threat, we really, really, really need the medics to patch up Michail Antonio and then find Jack's YouTube password because when the entire bottom half of the table is separated by two wins, you cannot take survival for granted. Plenty will disagree, I know, and it pains me to say it because I have frequently said that if we aren't trying to entertain and win trophies then we're merely taking up space, but that was also said in the context of us having a squad that could beat Shrewsbury without needing 210 minutes to do it. It's also true that the league doesn't have any obviously cut adrift teams at this point - God, I miss Sunderland - meaning that a couple of losses can drop a team like a stone.

Where have you gone, Jozy Altidore, our nation turns it lonely eyes to you

I would even go so far as to suggest that this might be the most important eight days of Sullivan's tenure so far. Inertia now could see us relegated. A typical overspend could see us unable to sign anyone in the summer. Ho hum, Sully, you haven't even told us how hard you're working yet. Is everything ok?

I'm not saying that I don't understand those who would prioritise a Cup run over league position, but I think it does need to be pointed out that the league position we might end up forfeiting could be 17th. That seems far too high a price to pay for the inevitable Fifth Round away trip to Old Trafford.

***

"I'm crazy 
Crazy for feeling so blue"
- Willie Nelson, "Crazy"

Here is something I observed on Saturday which I have decided to call The Three Stages of Pablo Zabaleta.

Picks up the ball on the edge of his box

I am abandoning my post and going on a wonderful adventure!

Passes the halfway line

Blimey, I'm certainly not playing for Manchester City anymore am I! Where the fuck is everyone?

Loses the ball high up the pitch

Oh my God. There are people trying to kill me, everything is on fire and their winger is in behind me again! I think Big Andy's gone down again!

I think Pablo needs a rest.

***

"Oh I really want to know

So tell me, where does all the money go?"

- The Libertines, "What a Waster"

I wonder, then, about our transfer activity. Things have changed a lot in the last eighteen months, as the fan backlash finally seems to have convinced the club to keep more of their activity in house and limit official announcements made via the Twitter account of the owners' teenage son. (I wonder how many times Real Madrid bloggers have ever had to write a sentence like that). 

But what also seems to be evident is that something is off. We shipped out more players than we brought in this summer, and some even requiring our CFO to look up the term "profit" for the first time. But even with that, and even with the alleged increased revenues from the move, we still seem to be wanting to let someone go before we can bring anyone in.

If that is true, it suggests that the next company accounts will be fascinating reading. We've seen the Mayor's report so we know that West Ham contributed very little to the stadium conversion, meaning that the bulk of our costs are therefore out on the pitch. I don't know the details of our wage structure, but Hart and Hernandez are perhaps the two best paid in the squad. Along with Carroll and Reid they occupy a huge slab of our overheads and yet are so rarely on the pitch.

So. Much. Money.

The folly of not treating good health as a skill on a par with finishing or passing is once more haunting us, as we suffer our annual injury crisis and are again forced to convert Rush Green into a field hospital. It still boggles my mind that anyone would want us to sign Jack Wilshere given that this crisis is literally a yearly occurrence. Karren should really replace the crossed Hammers with crutches if she wants total brand synergy.

I've written in the past about the stupidity of our January transfer activity, and we shouldn't ignore the fact that when you do dumb things like pay £10m for Robert Snodgrass, the repercussions of that are felt for a while. It's entirely possible that we wasted some of the summer budget last January, and the domino effect has trickled all the way to here. If I'm honest, I can't actually see how that could be the case given that we got £25m for Dimitri Payet, but I'm clutching at straws, because the alternative is that they spent it all on wages or are choosing not to spend money at all, and either of those would be too depressing a reality for a January evening.

As it is, I don't want the club to waste yet more money on desperation signings, but doing nothing is no longer an option. A deeper midfielder is vital to cover Noble and Obiang, and a player with the ability to create chances is equally important, be they a striker or a wide player. I have no idea where Moyes goes from here tactically, but we'll probably have to accept a reversion to the cautious defensive pragmatism of his early days as we try and inch our way clear of the quagmire. It is at times like this that I am grateful to have him - the thought of Bilic trying to get something out of this team is terrifying.

And so it is that we might look back on these cold, soaking wet, slate grey January games and be eternally grateful for the points we eked out when we were at our lowest ebb. This might feel like a disappointing result, but context remains our friend and with our sights now set so low they might as well be underground, this scrambled equaliser could be priceless.

And so on we limp, the walking wounded who now finding walking a bit of a struggle. Context might be important, but on another day, at a later date, with safety secured, we're really going to have to have a chat about what we all think is an acceptable return for all of those big numbers at the top of this article. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't feel like this is it. 

Bournemouth 3 - 3 West Ham (And Other Ramblings)

"Night, night after day

Black flowers blossom"

- Massive Attack, "Teardrop"

There is a universal truth about being a sports fan, which is that when we pay our money to enter an arena and watch our event, we believe the encounter we are about to watch will be fair. We have to believe the fight won't be rigged, or that the race is straight or the competitors aren't cheating, otherwise the whole thing is a waste of time.

Now, let me state here and now that I don't believe that a game between Bournemouth and West Ham would be worth fixing. Of all the things the Bilderberg Group are doing, I have to imagine this would be quite a long way down the list. We have again been the victim of more poor officiating, and because our minds are conditioned to remember negative things more than positive, it feels like such an overwhelming weight of misfortune that we then begin to wonder if it truly is bad luck or something more sinister. For when a player who is offside scores a last minute equaliser with his hand, and a referee seemingly overrules his linesman to award that goal, then it's hard not to do a double take. 

Brown envelope out of sight

So let me invoke Hanlon's Razor here - never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence. It is bizarre to suggest that referee Bobby Madley was bribed to turn this game in Bournemouth's favour, but I equally don't have any qualms in saying that his performance here was appalling. His first error was to fail to send off Simon Francis for a head high, studs up challenge on Cheikhou Kouyate. I don't think Francis was intending to catch Kouyate, and had his eyes firmly on the ball, but when you raise your studs to that height you also have a responsibility to ensure you don't land them on a fellow professionals face. Rather than consult another official or take his time and weigh the decision up, Madley instead brandished a yellow card immediately, which has the added effect of ensuring Francis won't even get the retrospective ban he deserves. And for anyone who hasn't seen it, and thinks perhaps I'm being a little melodramatic - you can judge for yourself here: 

Just a yellow - nothing to see here

Similarly, Madley chose not to act on Josh King accidentally elbowing Pedro Obiang in the face off the ball. That probably sounds crazy, but the Norwegian flung his arms out in frustration at a decision and caught Obiang unaware, knocking him to the ground. I don't think there was any intent in the actions of King either, and that is more relevant in his case because the laws clearly state that a player must be dismissed for "deliberately striking an opponent". It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that players should refrain from throwing their elbows around, but they are also people and if we try to remove all joy and human emotion from football then we run the risk of turning this whole thing into BBC1 on Christmas night. 

But where Madley fatally impacted this game was in the dying moments. We had floundered and fluked our way to a 3-2 lead, and with just seconds remaining a hopeful ball was pumped into our box. In truth, we hadn't dealt with that line of attack very well all day, and true to form Nathan Ake won the header. He looped the ball back across goal and a marginally offside Callum Wilson diverted the ball in with this arm. 

The referee's assistant (oh the irony of that title) immediately raised his flag, and the goal was all set to be disallowed. At that point Madley trotted over to the sidelines. That, in itself, is fairly unusual given that he has a radio link with his assistants and I'm not sure I've ever really seen a referee do that for a straightforward offside decision. After a lengthy enough deliberation for a video referee to have reviewed the incident in real time and made the correct decision, Madley awarded the goal, because of course he fucking did. 

Delving into the world of conjecture for a moment I have to suspect that the following happened: the assistant flagged for offside, Madley intimated that he didn't think Wilson touched the ball, the assistant pointed out that this couldn't really be true as the ball wasn't going in until Wilson used his arm to push it in, Madley disagreed because Callum Wilson is a theoretical concept and awarded the goal and the stadium announcer promptly told the world that Callum Wilson has just scored the equaliser. Some fucking magic, that. 

In the end, I don't believe this was anything more than poor officiating but it's easy to get drawn into thinking otherwise. After all, I believe that there is an institutional corruption that sits at the heart of most sport. Had this happened against Manchester United, for example, I think that Madley would have disallowed the goal purely because human beings typically do the things that allow them the easiest lives. Referees know that they can make a decision like this against West Ham and be in the news cycle for one night. Do it against Mourinho and you're infamous for months. 

So there you go: I think that elite level football is ludicrously tilted towards the rich; I believe that pretty much every high level athlete is using performance enhancing drugs and just because it started with track and field, swimming and cycling doesn't mean it won't be football and rugby soon enough; I believe that cup draws are probably at least partially fixed to satisfy the demands of television, sponsors and Vladimir Putin; and I think that one reason that governing bodies in football are so reluctant to introduce measures to help referees get more decisions correct is that big clubs don't want that to happen - why, after all, would you give up one of the inherent advantages of being a big club - namely that you can rely on most line decisions going your way? 

But for all that might make me a tin foil hatted conspiracy theorist in your eyes, I can honestly say that I don't think referees are biased against West Ham for the simple reason that there would be no point. So when you boil all of that down, the reality is probably just that Bobby Madley is a bit of a shit referee. 

***

"This is the highlight of your miserable life

A pessimist is never disappointed"

- Theaudience, "A Pessimist is Never Disappointed"

I could write yet more about the decisions in this game, and how I can't see any difference between the "deception" of Manuel Lanzini and the "magic" of Callum Wilson, but fixating too much on officiating would detract away from yet another disappointing performance. It may seem strange to say that when we scored three goals, but we spent most of this game clinging on to the coattails of a decidedly poor Bournemouth team and were particularly fortunate to pull level at 2-2, when Marko Arnautovic took advantage of Asmir Begovic wearing clown shoes in the driving rain.

We started well enough, with James Collins celebrating his recall by thumping home a trademark near post header from an Aaron Cresswell corner. I especially enjoyed this because Bournemouth placed a man on the post to specifically prevent this and he moved far enough from his spot to allow the ball in. It is worth remembering stuff like this when we question how managers can't organise their teams to defend properly - some footballers are so poor at concentrating that they can't even stand still when they're told to.

God bless men who can't stand still

That early lead didn't look particularly secure, however, as our back line seemed to have over indulged at Christmas, and the home team flooded forward in search of an equaliser, creating plenty of opportunities. King should have scored from one such chance, before Dan Gosling latched on to a weak Collins clearing header and rifled home the leveller. Oddly, we really should have been two ahead by this stage as Arthur Masuaku produced another trademark run before picking out Andre Ayew, who put the ball narrowly wide. On such slender threads can satisfactory Boxing Nights hang.

By this stage the rain was hammering down like Blade Runner, although even Roy Batty might have seen some new things here. After Ake scrambled home another shittily defended set piece to give the home side the lead their pressure warranted, it looked as though we would have yet another disappointing trip to the coast. Enter Begovic, who casually controlled a backpass before falling over his own feet, allowing Arnautovic - who hadn't stopped running - to capitalise with a neat left footed finish. Score one for the Moyes school of sergeant majoring the fuck out players.

Better was to come when Masuaku again went roaming with just a minute to go and picked out Chicharito who made a complete Benteke of it, but was saved when Begovic again lost control of his limbs and Arnautovic poked home his fifth goal in as many games. With just injury time to come, it seemed as though we had done enough to steal a win we didn't really deserve - a trait that Moyes would be very welcome to bring with him from all those years at Goodison.

Unfortunately, there was still some Truly, Madley, Deeply action to come and as it was we are left to ponder what kind of world we live in where we can take four points from Arsenal and Chelsea but just one from Newcastle and Bournemouth, and that the only consistent thing about this team is that you don't ever know what they are going to do.

The worry is that these were two games where we could reasonably have expected to have shown a little more in attack. Sitting back and soaking up constant pressure is fine against the teams with several hundred million more to spend on their squads, but these were supposed to the games where we showed we could punch back against our fellow strugglers. And so we scored five and conceded six and the only thing we know is that we know nothing.

***

"Am I moving back in time? Just standing still?"

- The War on Drugs, "Pain"

High up on my list of concerns is the way in which our team seem to be ageing in front of our eyes. Pablo Zabaleta had to replaced here because Bournemouth targeted him in much the same way as Newcastle did, and got nearly as much joy from it. He gets a light ride from the London Stadium crowd because he's enthusiastic and runs around like a toddler on Fanta, but the truth is that his positional play still leaves a lot to be desired and we are forced to expose him as a wing back because we can't defend without playing three in the middle. The chances of him being able to play twice in three days strikes me as minimal, meaning that I suspect we'll see Rice at Wembley against Spurs, and seriously - are Sam Byram's hamstrings made out of spaghetti?

Zaba's going on a run again!

Zabaleta has also been booked seven times already this season, opening him up to red cards, and when players like Ryan Fraser can give him the kind of torrid afternoon that he did here, it bodes poorly for the remaining eighteen months of that characteristically stupid contract. Likewise, Winston Reid didn't even make the team here as he dropped out for Collins and we are now reduced to hoping that he didn't injure himself in doing so. With Fonte also out long term, it would explain the apparent interest in Alfie Mawson who might cost £25m but can at least still go on an 18-30 holiday if he wants to. I don't know much about Mawson, but it would be lovely if Moyes could target a centre back who can actually pass the ball rather than hoof it in the general direction of Andy Carroll irrespective of whether he is on the pitch or not. 

In front of them, Cheikhou Kouyate had another afternoon to forget, as his Catherine Wheel impression continued to have little impact on the game. Pedro Obiang has attracted a lot of opprobrium for his performances in these last couple of games, but I thought it was noticeable how much better he played alongside a proper central midfielder - Mark Noble - than we saw here. There is quite a lot of pressure on that central midfield area in this formation, given that we are giving up a body to play in the back three, and it asks a lot of the defensive midfielder. After a promising start, in which Obiang looked like he might actually improve a little under Moyes, he has regressed and was replaced here by Carroll - our Goliath for all seasons. I'm not quite ready to judge the Spaniard in this system until we see him get a run out alongside a better midfield partner, but I don't think it was a coincidence that we looked much better when Lanzini went deeper and started our attacks. Either way, I predict some reinforcements will be arriving soon. 

The double substitution of Carroll and Chicharito was supposed to galvanise us, but in reality just highlighted the paucity of attacking options that we currently seem to have. With only Lanzini and Masuaku able to create from deeper areas, we have to either rely on the mobile physicality of Antonio and Arnautovic or resort to the long range bombing approach and launch mortars at Fort Carroll and hope for something to land at the feet of Chicharito. And while we do that, the plan was that the sturdy defensive setup constructed by Moyes would allow us to keep clean sheets. 

If we can't maintain any defensive structure while being more expansive, then Moyes will have to apply the handbrake and revert to a less attacking style to try and give us a chance of winning games like this 1-0. It might not be pretty, but relegation scraps never are. In the driving rain of the South Coast, we dropped two very precious points because of some awful refereeing, but also because we were defensively all over the place. 

***

"Someone's got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press

Whoever it is, I wish they'd cut it out quick, but when they will I can only guess"

- Bob Dylan, "Idiot Wind"

It's nearly January everyone, and that means that David Sullivan is going to be staying up really late ringing agents in South America and furiously flicking through YouTube highlight reels in search of the next Nene. As every West Ham fan knows, the New Year generally brings yet more stupidity in the boardroom, and with the team waist deep in relegation trouble, this time will be no different. Brilliantly, someone in the West Ham/Sullivan PR team decided that a great way to kick off this particular transfer window would be to carry a story in the Mail about how Dave Sullivan Jr lives in a £40m luxury flat and "works harder than anyone he knows".

Another heart warming Christmas story

In fairness to the kid, I'd hate to be judged on things I said and did at the age of twenty, and so I'll choose to ignore the generally crass theme of the article and the incredibly tone deaf decision to celebrate unfathomable, undeserved wealth at a time when so many people in the country are suffering in a stagnant economy. But, honestly, who the hell thinks this stuff is a good idea? Why do these kids keep getting repeatedly exposed to public scrutiny of their lives and activities when it is such a red rag to a fanbase who already think their father is tight and screwing money out of the club? None of this is complicated - but when we're about to enter a month of transfer activity which will define our season, why would you be in the media boasting about your wealth...

...if you're going to do things like this?

Can you see how these two pictures cause problems, Dave? It doesn't matter whether the N'Zonzi story is true, or the fact that I agree that a loan approach is better, because the account that carried it has over sixty thousand followers and this cheap looking style fits a club who seem to have no money.

There were also lots of rumours today about Reece Oxford moving permanently to Germany, although we may now apparently recall him to play for us instead. The rumour there was that Moyes was keen to move the kid on in order to get some cash in for new signings. Quite why we should need cash given that we spent such a low sum in the summer is an issue in itself, but beyond that it also highlights the total stupidity of allowing a potentially temporary manager to make such decisions. Ask yourself whether you would want the substitute teacher expelling your kid, and that will give you an idea of how good a decision making set up this would be. 

Moyes doesn't need to worry about what our squad will look like in 2020 because he knows that if we  go down this summer he won't be here to worry about it. Once again a Director of Football would be best placed to make such a decision, and once again we don't have one. Let's therefore hope that the Oxford recall is with a view to turning him into a better West Ham player, rather than with a view to turning him into enough cash to buy declining 29 year old players for a relegation battle. We already have a squad full of them. 

It's unimportant that one of these can get you a Mirallas

Yes, Oxford might have an attitude problem, and maybe he has a difficult agent, but those things are true of lots of teenage players. In the end, this is a chance for us to get a potentially high quality player for nothing, and flogging him to allow Sullivan to waste yet more funds on his idea of good footballers doesn't do anything for me. Oxford will mature one day, and we'll regret it immensely if he does so somewhere outside East London. Ultimately, when teams who are better than you want your players, that should tell you something about the asset you have. If we truly don't think we can get the best from an eighteen year old then I guess we should move him on, but in turn I would be asking some questions about exactly why that was the case. 

So, who should we target? Well, I've outlined above how I'd like a centre back - although that is a slightly difficult assessment to make given that we don't really know how highly the club rate any of Reece Oxford, Reece Burke or Not Reece Declan Rice. A right sided defender to cover Zabaleta and Byram's incredible Chinese noodle hamstrings would also be useful. But we also clearly need a central midfielder who can get about the pitch and create something, while a striker that Moyes can trust to do some Diafra Sakho type things without being Diafra Sakho would really be helpful too. 

There is absolutely no chance of us getting all of those players in January, so to my mind they absolutely have to target the midfield as we are currently only playing a three man midfield and still had to play strikers in there for the Arsenal cup game. N'Zonzi wouldn't have been a bad short term acquisition but at 29 he would be yet another to add to the phalanx of ageing one-last-contract types that clutter up our squad. 

A better approach, for this season only, might be to target the big clubs and look at non playing member of their squads who are borderline choices for their countries and taking them on short loans. Anyone wanting to play at the World Cup will need game time between now and May, and we would be the ideal place for someone to stage a revival, provided we don't introduce them to Joe Hart. 

As such, the link to Andre Schurrle makes sense, as would a return for Andre Gomes - a rumoured target around the time of the William Carvalho debacle. I like the idea of getting these hungry, motivated players, who can arrive and have an immediate impact. Of course, historically this has never worked for us but if the alternative is buying another Robert Snodgrass, then I'm happy to give it another whirl. 

***

"But the drumbeat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the new born day"
- Al Stewart, "The Year of the Cat"

Some of you may have noticed that I didn't post an article for the Newcastle game. This wasn't a fit of pique but more because I decided to spend Christmas Eve with the family rather than spewing out 3,000 words on how our midfield was overrun by Mo Diame. I did, however, vent a little on Twitter which you can find here. 

1. No H List today, so here are some thoughts on yesterday. A game of fine margins that highlighted some flaws we’ve known about all season, and brought in to focus how - yet again - major surgery is needed in January.

— HeadHammerShark (@TheHList) December 24, 2017

I've also been asking for some recollections from fans on Frank Lampard Jr, for a retro piece I'm writing at the moment. Any contributions would be gratefully accepted.

And with that, all that remains is for me to wish you all a very Happy New Year and to thank you for reading The H List in 2017. See you in 2018 - it's West Brom to start, so that's bound to be hugely entertaining.

Bournemouth 3 - 2 West Ham (And Other Ramblings)

1. Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

And so it goes on. I'm not even sure what to say anymore but I know I just want this joyless season to end. This year, in which we were supposed to kick on and show the world what an upwardly mobile club we have become, has instead been in its own way almost as nostalgic as last term.

Where once I thought we were building for the future, instead we now seem determined to keep repeating the past. This is our very own Groundhog Day, with no sign of a Cockney Andie MacDowell or a useful toaster to end the loop.

Wait, they're still not playing a right back?

This season has been a homage to years past. Terrible recruitment, players forced to play out of position, our best player demanding a move away and fans splintering from a Board of Directors who seem to be having an entirely different experience to the rest of us. 

I don't particularly care that we lost to Bournemouth in this deadest of dead seasons, but I do care that some at the Club seem to have not even noticed we lost the game at all. David Gold thinks this risible shitshow was a 6/10 performance.

On my way home. Bournemouth 3 West Ham 2
We were well below par today 6/10 referee 7/10 West Ham away fans were at their best 10/10 dg

— David Gold (@davidgold) March 11, 2017

Slaven Bilic, meanwhile,  thinks we "are looking like a really good team" and I am forced to turn to the fantasist David Sullivan for a half sensible appraisal of affairs. I hate being so negative about the club that I love, but I see no obvious way that West Ham will ever progress out of being an average mid table side under the current ownership. I'm well aware that we are just one season removed from one of the finest years in our history, but this term has made it painfully obvious that 2015/16 was an outlier.

We have now entered into a period of our history where nearly everything we are doing is running entirely contrary to the rest of the footballing world. We are buying older players while everyone else gets younger, buying from England as the rest of the league recruit players from a wider base than ever before and moving into a larger stadium and distancing our fans from the pitch as other clubs build steep Kops and employ accoustic engineers to ensure a fever pitch atmosphere.

I was a supporter of the move from Upton Park on the grounds that I saw no other way for us to compete with the richer, UEFA subsidised clubs in the Premier League. The loss of our home was a price worth paying to finally start going toe to toe with those clubs gifted a head start on us by virtue of history and the desire of the Premier League for a status quo.

But the harsh reality is this - more income, a bigger stadium and a higher profile are only useful in the hands of people who know what to do with them. And our Board demonstrably do not. This defeat - this insignificant but mind bending Groundhog Day defeat - highlighted every one of our flaws in all their awful glory. The incoherent transfer policy, the unbalanced selection, the mystifying tactics and the chaotic defending have killed us on the park and at the same time are all perfect metaphors for the Club's off the pitch approach. Seb Stafford-Bloor of FourFourTwo put it better than me when he said:

"West Ham are...a club with plenty of ambition, but who are either unsure of how to satiate it or incapable of doing so...In the absence of a more considered culture, they appear to have become overly reactionary, with organisational energies sapped by the need to firefight this never-shortening list of issues...Progressive clubs tend to radiate calm, logical order, whereas West Ham seem to exist in mild chaos.

There is always some kind of drama."

The bit about transfer values is off the mark, but the rest of that article is a dagger to the heart of the issue. 

I know that plenty of you want me to be more upbeat about the Club's outlook, and I get that. I would love nothing more than to write glowingly of our future, and caustically about Spurs, but I also have to write what I see. Theoretically it's a rosy picture, but from where I sit it is being squandered with an unforgivable insouciance by a Board in dire need of hearing some hard home truths. 

2. Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

So, what happened in this game? Well, firstly if you didn't see it and you think that maybe a last minute goal suggests we were unlucky then I should disabuse you of that notion. The only reason that we limped into the last five minutes of this game on level terms was due to the fact that Bournemouth's foreigners took penalties like traditional Englishmen should, and because Andre Ayew, of all people, is in unstoppable goal scoring form. 

We began again with Cheikhou Kouyate in the right back slot, probably due to Russian hackers - I HAVE NO OTHER EXPLANATION - and Michail Antonio returned to the starting lineup in place of Robert Snodgrass. Manuel Lanzini played in the inside left channel and Sofiane Feghouli drifted around all over the place, causing havoc. Sadly this primarily manifested itself in our box and he conceded a cast iron penalty in the 9th minute as he tried stopping Charlie Daniels by jumping on his back. 

However, Josh King put the resulting penalty wide, and just 48 seconds later we took the lead after Harry Arter conceded possession to Feghouli on the edge of the Bournemouth box, and the Algerian fed Antonio for a sharp turn and finish. It was an excellent goal, fashioned from nothing and further vindication that Antonio really is our pre-eminent attacking player these days. 

While that goal should have calmed us, we were looking rocky every time Bournemouth got into our half. Reid was struggling with Benik Afobe and Daniels and Pugh were slaughtering us down our right side and an equaliser looked inevitable. It duly arrived on the half hour when King made amends for his earlier miss with a fine turn and finish, leaving Fonte for dust in the box. 

Thereafter, referee Bobby Madley stepped up and, in keeping with the rather poor nature of most of his decisions, awarded the home side a second penalty after an embarrassing dive from Marc Pugh. When the referee blew the whistle I presumed it was to book Pugh for a dive so blatant that all Englishmen bearing the name "Pugh" should this week be stapled to their local church and pelted with out of date pavlovas, as we did in the olden days, in retribution. 

Instead Madley bought it, and Bournemouth got precisely what they deserved when Afobe took a penalty so shit he'd be a dead cert for the next England squad if he hadn't already committed to the DR Congo. 

Undeterred, the Cherries took the lead again three minutes after half time through a suspiciously offside looking King. Replays showed he was miles offside when the cross came into the box but under the current rules was correctly ruled onside, as Antonio wandered back with his customary lack of awareness to play him onside and allow him to poke the ball home to give them the lead. This marked the fifth consecutive game that we have conceded within twelve minutes of a half starting, which I'm sure isn't a problem at all. 

That led to quite a lot of futile attacking as we looked to get back into the game, most of which looked hopeless until Obiang picked out the advanced Byram with a sumptuous pass inside the left back and the newly arrived substitute set up his fellow replacement Ayew for a straightforward tap in. 

Instead of getting a draw we scarcely deserved, however, Ayew was then caught in possession and with Byram so far up the pitch he was almost in fucking Portsmouth, Jack Wilshere broke away and after his shot was saved King slammed home a deserved winner from the rebound despite us having two men on the line. It was that kind of day. 

3. Is It Really So Strange?

If you take a look at this pass map from @11tegen11 you don't really need much else to explain this defeat.

This is a side not using one side of the pitch to attack. When Bilic eventually loses his job, the pigheaded refusal to accept that he needs a proper right back will be a large part of the reason. Instead of allowing Byram a run of games to see what he has, he persists in playing Kouyate there and as this shows, it does us no good at all.

We ship so many goals down the right (no matter who plays there) that only a fool would refuse to accept it isn't our biggest weakness. Here Kouyate was rendered useless as an attacking force by the huge number of overloads that Bournemouth managed against him, preventing him advancing. These were largely as a result of Feghouli not tracking back, which is best highlighted by the fact that our centre half, Jose Fonte, had a wider average position than our right winger. Both right sided starters were eventually withdrawn, in a tacit admission that their selection in those roles was a mistake and you can bet your unusable West Ham e-credits that we'll see them both out there again on Saturday.

The good stuff came from Antonio who foraged admirably, often in advance of Carroll, scored a fine goal and could have had a second with some better luck. While it's easy to criticise Bilic on the back of performances as abject as this, it should not be forgotten that players like Antonio and Lanzini have flourished and improved markedly under his management. The latter remains a delight, and holding on to this pair in the summer will be a tough job if better clubs come calling.

Elsewhere, Carroll was horribly isolated and immobile and barely looks fit, whilst Lanzini was our key creative force despite being wasted out wide yet again for the first half. Whoever has taken over Aaron Cresswell's body got quite high up the pitch and did nothing when he got there. His best performance of the season remains the away game at Crystal Palace, a game where he returned from long term injury, was knackered after an hour and got sent off with fifteen minutes to go.

I appreciate you might be reading this on your morning commute, but I want you to know that nobody will judge you if you have a drink.

4. What Difference Does It Make?

I tweeted out during this game that for a side with one tactic for goalscoring - crosses to Andy Caroll - we sure are shit at crossing the ball. Some took umbrage to that, berating me as the two goals we scored showed that to be untrue. I guess that viewpoint is predicated on the belief that we scored our two goals as a result of a tactical plan. Given that the first came from an opposition error, and the second came from a high raiding right back - something Bilic cannot possibly consider a tactic as he never picks one - you'll have to count me out on that one. I see only one tactic for trying to score.

Since Carroll came back to fitness we have played Chelsea and Bournemouth, and attempted 54 crosses, completing 9. In that same two game span our opponents have successfully completed 8 from 28. This shouldn't surprise anyone who watched the games, as both were incredibly frustrating.

I don't dismiss it as a tactic given that both opponents seemed weak centrally but it can't be denied that it's failed dismally. At least part of this can be put down to Carroll lacking match fitness, as he's barely got near anything, but also due to the low quality of the service. Snodgrass was the main culprit against Chelsea and was duly dropped, but the rest of them have been just as bad. Here, as an example, Cresswell had a number of opportunities and managed nothing of any significance.

Well, we could have had a worse experience with crosses, I suppose

The great frustration is that our best creative player, Lanzini, keeps being isolated in wide positions to start games despite this needing to be changed every time it's been tried. I am but a lowly blogger, and I defer on every conceivable level to Slaven Bilic, but if he is forced to keep changing his own tactics then I cannot understand why he is persisting with them. It's not me telling him he's wrong - it's opposition managers.

When we beat both Middlesbrough and Southampton, it was noticeable that we didn't do so by battering them with crosses but by mixing our attack and actually attempting to go through the middle with our neat ball playing midfield.

With Leicester in town next week, and featuring two centre halves whose only strength is heading the ball, it would be nice to see some variety in our play.

5. This Night Has Opened My Eyes

Up until this weekend I had considered Bournemouth almost entirely unremarkable. Their team is peppered with players who could break into my house and be assured of anonymity even if I caught then scrawling their name on the wall, Homer Simpson style.

Simon Francis breaks into my house - "Who the devil are you?" I say

I'm sure this sounds insulting, and I don't mean it to be, but I can't tell most of the Bournemouth team apart. Francis, Cook, Daniels, Smith, Pugh. I have no idea who these men are. 

And yet, Bournemouth had two very obvious tactics today. First, bomb down our right hand side, targeting Kouyate and generally tearing us apart while Bilic stuck his fingers in his ears and told himself everything was going to be alright. 

The second was to simply surround the referee every time he made a decision. I've never seen anything quite like it, and I've seen us play Manchester United seven times in the last two seasons. 

The ringleader was Dan Gosling, a player so unrelentingly mediocre that he is most famous for something he did when nobody was watching. It wouldn't have surprised me to have seen Madley in the dressing room afterward deciding what shower gel to use and for Gosling to have appeared and screamed into his face that he was wrong. It was all very Goodison, as the home crowd appealed for everything with a sense of injustice that might of been a bit more understandable if they hadn't been given two penalties, one of which being for a piece of street theatre.

Perhaps the injustice was fuelled by the fact Tyrone Mings was banned for this game having been banned for three games for stamping on Zlatan Ibrahimovic's head, and a further two for then having the temerity not to play for Manchester United while appealing the decision. Maybe it was because Noble brainlessly launched into a tackle after getting booked for dissent and was perhaps lucky to stay on the pitch. 

I have no real comment here, they deserved to win, but mostly I thought they behaved like dickheads and I wasn't really expecting it. 

6. Panic

If I had to think of one defining feature of Jose Fonte's West Ham career so far it would be of him rushing out to our right flank to make some last ditch tackle while our right back stared on with glassy eyed indifference from the halfway line.

I wasn't a fan of signing Fonte, largely because spending eight big ones on a 33 year old is the biggest waste of a few million since that Sheikh hired Robbie Williams expecting to hear a load of jokes from "Good Morning, Vietnam" (*)

However, I struggle to blame Fonte for the state of our back four, which seems to be the position of West Ham Twitter after this game. Fonte looks alright to me, but like all of them is being exposed by our right flank and our terrifying susceptibility to quick counter attacks. For a team with two holding midfielders we get hit on the break with alarming regularity, and are being repeatedly cut open by losing the ball in places we simply can't afford to lose it.

At this stage, it seems fair to assume that Byram isn't showing Bilic anything in training to force his selection, and as such isn't going to make the position his own. I don't really know where that leaves us in terms of our right side, but I don't see anything that makes me think James Collins is the answer to the problem.

The reality is we have only five clean sheets in the league all season. I simply cannot wrap my head around how a team managed by a centre half can so look so clueless at the back. With 21 goals conceded in 10 games in 2017, we are currently parading the worst defence since this guy argued he shouldn't get a driving ban as he needed his car to drive between his two wives.

To quote Sean Connery spinning round in the fireplace in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade my main observation of all these defensive changes is that, essentially, "Our situation has not improved".

He's got a point 

(*) This might be an urban legend. Don't tell me if it is - I want it to be true and real life is a cruel mistress. 

7. How Soon Is Now?

Another week, another Mark Noble substitution. In truth, this one was needed to prevent him from being sent off, as the Gosling led hordes were round Madley every time he even contemplated a tackle.

However, it was another game where the skipper had little impact and it's hard to know where he fits when Obiang and Lanzini are both playing so well. It seems odd, but perhaps in retrospect Noble was a bigger beneficiary of Payet than we realised. With opposition players inevitably drawn toward the Frenchman, maybe Noble just had more time to play, and produced his best ever season as a result.

Whatever the issue is, he seems to have lost the ability to meaningfully influence games at the moment and it's telling how often it is Obiang who is producing the key passes from our midfield. Indeed, of Noble's 23 completed passes, only 10 even went forward in this game. I love Noble, and I accept he brings more to the team than can be seen on a statistical breakdown, but it feels like a good time to give him a break and see if we can't get into some kind of form with Kouyate and Obiang in the middle.

8. You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby

Andre Ayew appeared again to great effect of the bench. I still can't tell you with any degree of certainty what position Ayew is ever supposed to be playing but his Schrodinger like ability to be in multiple states certainly seems to be helpful in allowing him to be unmarked in front of empty nets.

Deadly when there is no goalkeeper

His goal owed most to Obiang's sublime through ball and Byram's awareness to cut it back to him, but one can't deny the usefulness of a striker who can take up actual honest-to-God goalscoring positions.  Ayew certainly looks better for his stint at the AFCON, but he also lacks in work rate off the ball, and his concession of possession for the third goal was particularly weak and especially galling as it left Jack Wilshere free to break and create a goal - the only Bournemouth player on the pitch with the necessary guile to exploit such a situation.

Our forward situation is a mess right now, with Carroll unfit but playing, and Antonio our only reliable outlet. This leaves Ayew, Snodgrass and Feghouli fighting over one spot as Bilic seems determined to waste Lanzini for 45 minutes per game out wide.

Competition for places is a good thing, but my overwhelming feeling as I watch these guys play is that I still think we need another wide player in the summer. A left sided version of Antonio would be perfect if a little wishful. The biggest issue of all might actually be a question of formation - if we are to play 4-2-3-1 then how much defensive work is expected of the two wide men in the 3? As it stands right now, they are hardly doing anything and it shows in our goals conceded column.

One benefit of the 3-4-3 formation is that your front three can get away with less defensive work if your shape is correct and your wing backs have the legs to cover the miles needed. I'm not entirely convinced that we have the necessary personnel for it right now, but either way we have to find a way to be more defensively solid than we are at present. I'd also suggesting taking the unicycles, red wigs, giant shoes and cream pies off everyone before the next game.


9. Suffer Little Children

After this game, we have won just three games against teams who aren't currently in the bottom three.  Those were the fortuitous home wins over Burnley and Bournemouth and a fine away win at Southampton. This might not bother you, as wins are wins and it matters not where the points come from so long as they come at all.

But to me this starkly highlights the regression of this season. Our performance against the best teams was always unsustainable, but I thought we would have held our own against the mid table types. As it is, we have become reliant upon beating the weakest teams in the division to prop us up into mid table.

It has made for a weird, unsatisfactory season with largely forgettable victories and some sadly memorable thumpings. We've also undergone wild swings in form whilst somehow producing a completely predictable set of results.

What this says about Bilic, I don't know. I am largely agnostic on him, to be honest. I suspect that working for our owners is a huge challenge, with the reputational damage we have suffered making it incredibly hard to attract good young players without paying way over the odds. As I said last week, I also don't think they have the wherewithal to replace him with anyone better so I'm sticking with the devil I know for now.

As it is, I gloated along with everyone else last season about the obvious progression from Allardyce and believed that campaign was the evidence we'd finally been waiting for that West Ham were going forward at last. But consider this team:

Adrian
Tomkins
Cresswell
Ogbonna
Reid
Oxford
Kouyate
Noble
Payet
Zarate
Sakho

(Nolan, Maiga, Jarvis)

This is the group that won 2-0 at Arsenal on the opening day of last season, and completely outplayed them. In the intervening eighteen months six of those players have left the club including the subs, two have lost form completely (Noble, Cresswell), two have been dropped (Adrian, Oxford), two are injured (Sakho, Ogbonna) and one is being played out of position (Kouyate) leaving just Reid as any sort of constant.

I thought that team was going to be the bedrock of a sustained period of decency, but instead it was just a fleeting "what if" and a tantalising glimpse into a future that would never come. Since then we have spent £38m buying Snodgrass, Fonte and Ayew and two of them were on the bench on Saturday.

I understand that last year was over performance and I get that for all my moaning there is every chance we may finish in the top ten this season, but I am frustrated by the failure to grasp the mettle. I keep saying it, but Upton Park was an acceptable price to pay (for me) if it turned us into Everton. If it turned us into West Brom then it was the worst deal since Lando Calrissian started negotiating with Darth Vader.

10. Accept Yourself

On some level, we are all Robert Snodgrass here.