In Retro - The 50 Best West Ham Games of the Premier League Era (40 - 31)

 40. Derby (a) 5-0 : 2007/08 Premier League

(Bowyer (42, 59), Etherington (51), Lewis (OG 55), Solano (69))

Any assessment of this game needs to acknowledge that this Derby County side was - quite literally - the worst to have ever played in the Premier League. They won one game all season, mustered just eleven points and generally played with all the natural athleticism and skill of the prison guards in Mean Machine. 

That said, when we played them we had most of the first team out injured because it was November and that's the law, so the context was that Derby were pretty optimistic about beating us that day. As things turned out, they were suitably crap and Alan Curbishley's reserves were well organised enough to take the lead before halftime with a smart Lee Bowyer goal. Thereafter we went mental, scoring four times in twenty four minutes after the interval before everyone agreed that things were getting embarrassing now and we took pity on Derby and declared. 

The rare, contented Bowyer

Upon reflection this game might be most remarkable as the day we finally saw what we had in Bowyer, whose signing caused such controversy at the time and who never really captured the form that had made him such an electrifying player for Leeds in earlier years. On his day - and this was his day - he was an excellent midfielder. 

As far as away days go, I'm not sure they come much more fun than this. 

39. Manchester United (h) 4-0 : 2010/11 League Cup

(Spector (22, 37), C Cole (56, 66))

Now this was a weird game of football. By early evening most of East London was under snow so my dad and I agreed that given West Ham's state of the art pitch defrosting system consisted mainly of pouring hot water on the lines, we could safely assume the game was off. I went to the pub and was fairly surprised when I found out the game was going ahead, and then absolutely fucking startled when Jonathan Spector scored twice inside 37 minutes to put us two goals up. Carlton Cole added a pair of his own in the second half and in general we absolutely battered the visitors. 

There is no doubt that the Manchester United side was missing most of their stars but it's also true that we fielded such legends as Pablo Barrera, Tal Ben Haim and Radoslav Kovac. Looking back it's not all that hard to understand how we were eventually relegated in last place. 

Still, under the astute tactical guidance of legendary manager Avram Grant, we actually advanced all the way to the semi finals of this competition and were somehow 3-1 up on aggregate with just 31 minutes to go in the second leg, before collapsing and getting knocked out by Birmingham City. 

In the darkness of an exceptionally bad season, this result was a tremendous bright spot. 

38. Charlton (a) 4-4 : 2000/01 Premier League

(Kitson (3, 30, 64), Defoe (84) - Euell (21, 28), Johansson (51, 90))

It's possible that there has been a worse defensive performance than this in the Premier League but click on the link above and check this one out so you have a baseline, at least. Quite how our back four didn't involve a juggler on a unicycle, a seal balancing a ball on his nose and a real life actual clown remains a bit of a mystery. 

For all that, terrible defending can often lead to fun games and this was no exception. We scored early through Paul Kitson and then stood spraying water out of plastic flowers as Jason Euell scored twice in quick succession. Kitson equalised with the best goal of the night and had to do so again just after the hour once we'd allowed Jonathon Johansson to run unmolested through what we were at that point laughingly calling our back line. 

Glenn Roeder then brought on Jermain Defoe to a chorus of boos as a result of him having left Charlton for us as a kid and he looked to have snatched victory with a fine late volley. Sadly, we couldn't hold on as Johansson scored a last minute overhead kick, despite the best efforts of our defenders on unicycles, to cap one of the most entertaining games in Premier League history. 

37. Southampton (h) 3-3 : 1993/94 Premier League

(Williamson (11), Allen (62), Monkou (OG 90) - Le Tissier (45, 65 p), Maddison (52))

One of the great unspoken joys of being a football fan is that from time to time you are able to experience opposition players at the height of their powers. The real pleasure is in being able to beat them, of course, but from time to time it's enough to simply luxuriate in their presence on your patch of grass. 

Not the sturdiest looking wall I've ever seen

Matthew Le Tissier was one such player. It helped that he played for Southampton and not one of the bigger teams, where he would have inevitably become hated. Instead he stayed on the south coast and spent his career performing miracles to keep a generally limited team in the league. On this afternoon, yet another final day extravaganza, Saints needed points to stay in the division as one of four teams facing the drop, while Upton Park was packed as fans took the chance to say farewell to the old North Bank. In many ways this was the end of a very specific era - this was a farewell to terracing and the English game and welcome to Sky, globalisation and the gradual removal of football from the place it previously existed in our society. 

So we scored early through home debutant Danny Williamson, before Le Tissier began bending the game to his will. He equalised with a sumptuous free kick, and then set up Neil Maddison to head the visitors into a vital lead. As the heavens opened Martin Allen levelled things up before Le Tissier scored his second from the spot. With just seconds remaining and chaos in the ground as fans were again spilling on to the pitch, Ken Monkou headed an own goal to briefly threaten Saints attempt at staying up. 

As it was, their point was enough, and we all got to witness a bravura performance from a giant of the era. It's a rare day when opposition fans truly enjoy an enemy player but I loved watching Le Tissier and I greatly respected the loyalty that tied him to his first club when he could really have gone anywhere. Perhaps that is why he was so widely admired - because at heart he did what all fans would love to have done. He played for his hometown team, become their best ever player, turned down millions elsewhere and retired a legend. For Matt Le Tissier, read every kid in the country. What a player. 

36. Spurs (h) 2-1 : 2005/06 Premier League

(Fletcher (10), Benayoun (80) - Defoe (35))

More final day drama and this time it is one of the few Premier League games that can be summed up with a single word. And with this being West Ham, that word naturally is...lasagne. 

With Spurs a point ahead of Arsenal heading into the final game of the season, and with us a week away from our first cup final for twenty five years, there was a lot of trepidation heading into this game. As much as it would have been delicious to deny Spurs their first Champions League campaign, most fans were adamant that the first team needed to be rested to avoid inevitable injury. 

In the end, Alan Pardew mixed and matched playing his first choice defence but resting most of his attacking options. The real drama, however, was taking place off the pitch as the Spurs squad was struck down with a dose of food poisoning and spent most of the morning of the match throwing up. Despite their best efforts to get the fixture postponed, the Premier League were having none of it and the game went ahead at the same time as Arsenal were facing Wigan in the last ever match at Highbury. 

Chefs Kiss

We started the brighter, unsurprisingly as most of the Spurs players were on their knees, and Carl Fletcher smashed home the opener after just ten minutes. In truth, Spurs put on a pretty brave display in the circumstances and former Hammer Defoe burgled an equaliser before half time. The second half started with Teddy Sheringham missing a penalty against his former side (notice the difference there?) and continued manically amid the news that Arsenal were somehow contriving to lose to Wigan. 

The universe righted itself, however, and the Gunners were soon in front and then Yossi Benayoun crafted an outstanding winner with just ten minutes to play. He latched on to a back heel from Marlon Harewood - which was hard - drifted past Michael Dawson - which was not - and then lifted the ball into the roof of the net. Cue pandemonium and the possibly apocryphal tale of Arsenal fans singing "Bubbles" at Highbury. 

35. Blackpool (N) 2-1 : 2011/12 Play Off Final

(C Cole (35), Vaz Te (87) - Ince (48))

I debated for a long time about including this game. In some ways it is more a monument to the club's failures than a moment of glory, but I suppose that at times it is worth acknowledging that winning big games at Wembley isn't something that happens every day. 

We found ourselves in the Play Offs courtesy of too many draws over a long campaign, but it's worth acknowledging that Sam Allardyce did a terrific job in taking the wreckage of the Avram Grant era and moulding it into something half decent. Facing us were Blackpool, who had played pretty well all season under Ian Holloway but actually finished eleven points behind us in the league, while we won the two league fixtures against them by an aggregate score of 8-1. It felt like a game we couldn't really lose, whilst also feeling exactly like a game we would lose. 

In truth the match was pretty scrappy, but Carlton Cole scored an excellently crafted goal before half time to give us the lead. 

Tom Ince, son of noted Hammers enthusiast Paul, then scored an oddly similar looking equaliser, and when Kevin Nolan thumped a fabulous volley against the bar in the closing stages it felt like extra time was inevitable. As it was, Nolan and Cole combined to set up Ricardo Vaz Te to slam home an 87th minute winner and spark wild scenes in the West Ham end. The play offs are tremendous - now let us never play in another again. 

34. Bolton (a) 3-0 : 1994/95 Premier League

(Bishop (46), Cottee (68), Williamson (89))

An esoteric choice perhaps, but a personal favourite. Back in the Nineties it felt to me as though we won away games with the same frequency that bands I liked appeared on Top of the Pops. In the three year period from 1993 - 1996, for example, we played 59 away games and won 11. So those victories became important due to their scarcity and this is one that lives in the memory of the frozen teenage me who watched this from the open terraces next to the supermarket that occupied the corner of Burnden Park. 

Bolton, in truth, were not very good and ended up being relegated after finishing bottom. However, at the point we played them in November we were in our usual bottom half strife and coming off a thumping 4-1 home defeat to Villa. 

However, we exploded into life here as three excellent goals from Ian Bishop, Tony Cottee and Danny Williamson sealed a comprehensive win. The latter, in particular, was an outstanding solo effort whereby Williamson picked up the ball in his own box and ran the length of the pitch before smashing it home with his left foot. Nary a tackle to be seen, of course, but like I said - Bolton were pretty crap. A rare Northern foray where we returned with the points, and to punish us we have not won at Bolton since. 

33. Manchester City (a) 1-0 : 2002/03 Premier League

(Kanoute (81))

Hmm. Should any game from this dismal season really be making this list? And if it's going to be any then shouldn't it be the nails-to-the-quick home victory over Chelsea a week later? Perhaps, indeed probably yes, but I've gone for this simply due to the madness around the game. A week earlier we had snatched a 1-0 victory over Middlesbrough, only for manager Glenn Roeder to then be admitted to hospital with a serious blockage to the brain. In addition, I can't quite divorce my recollection of that Chelsea game from the news later that night that Bolton had got a point at Southampton and we were probably going down. 

Into that breach stepped Trevor Brooking as caretaker manager, while alleged club legend Paolo di Canio pondered whether to return from a self imposed strike in Italy to play for the club. First up was a trip to mid table Manchester City, who were a long way from being the Manchester City we know and hate today, but were still much better then us. 

In a tense, end to end affair we eventually snatched a late winner when Don Hutchison hit the post from about four inches out only for the ball to fortuitously rebound to Freddie Kanoute who tapped in the winner from two inches. In the end, it wasn't enough as we famously went down with 42 points and half the England team. But still, for a few minutes in Manchester it seemed we might escape. 

32. Blackburn Rovers (h) 2-1 : 2007/08 Premier League

(Ashton (39), Sears (81) - Santa Cruz (19))

Much of the Alan Curbishley era was characterised by a kind of stolid nothingness that seemed designed to tempt fans into wishing for something more. And so it was, and I'm not sure we ever really appreciated quite how hard it is to stay in the Premier League without an Eastenders style drama every single season. 

By the time this game rolled around in March 2008, we were firmly stuck in 10th place and never destined to move from it. With Craig Bellamy having moved on, much of the buzz among the fanbase was around the prospective arrival of some young players from the Academy at last. Jack Collison, James Tomkins and Freddie Sears would all debut that season, with the latter causing the greatest excitement with his remarkable goalscoring feats in the youth set up. 

A moment - an undeniable moment

At the point we played Rovers we were coming off three consecutive 4-0 defeats to Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs, and Curbishley was given what I believe I am contractually obliged to refer to as "the dreaded vote of confidence" by the Board. It seems odd to say now but the clamour for the inclusion of Sears was rapidly becoming a crescendo. Fans were demanding that the 18 year old be given his chance. 

However, when Roque Santa Cruz smartly gave the visitors an early lead it looked like Curbishley was on the ropes again before Dean Ashton equalised with a typically excellent goal just before half time. 

The second half was pretty even before Sears entered the fray with a quarter of an hour to go. Within just 6 minutes he ran on to an Ashton backheel and although his shot was saved, the rebound popped up perfectly for him to head in a debut winner. Generally this would be considered an unremarkable, unnoticed game in a typically grey season but on that day, in that moment when the crowd seemed to suck the ball into the net it seemed like substantially more. 

Sears would end up forging a solid career with Ipswich Town, while it was actually Collison and Tomkins who would go on to be excellent Premier League performers, but his debut was an electric lightning bolt across the sky. Anyone who was there will never forget it. 

31. Middlesbrough (N) 1-0 : 2005/06 FA Cup 

(Harewood (78))

I'm not sure exactly what this game is best remembered for. 

Perhaps it was the emotional pre match tribute to the recently deceased John Lyall, when a minutes silence became a stadium wide chant of "Johnny Lyall's claret and blue army". Or maybe it was the moment when goalscorer Marlon Harewood was asked in his post match interview whether he felt West Ham had really only turned up at half time, and he replied by saying "No, we've been here all day". 

Instead, it's probably true that a largely forgettable game is best remembered for the moment that Dean Ashton headed on a long ball and Harewood controlled it, held off Gareth Southgate and smashed home a glorious winner. Fittingly this game took place at Villa Park, which was famously the site of our last FA Cup semi final twenty five years previously. On that day a Tony Gale red card had ended a glorious cup run, but instead here we prevailed and advanced to a memorable, yet traumatic final with Liverpool. 

The hangover from this cup run continues to this day. It doesn't help that everybody rotates their team for cup games these days and with bigger teams now having such large, strong squads that the gap between us and them is now a canyon. But fans still fixate on this season, and argue that the couple of league places that we sacrificed to have this cup run were completely worth it. And maybe they are right, because there haven't been many better feelings in the last thirty years than watching Marlon Harewood smash that fucker in and send us to a cup final. 

In Retro - The 50 Best West Ham Games of the Premier League Era (50 - 41)

In Retro - The 50 Best West Ham Games of the Premier League Era (30 - 21)

In Retro - The 50 Best West Ham Games of the Premier League Era (20 - 11)

In Retro - The 50 Best West Ham Games of the Premier League Era (10 - 1)

In Retro - The 50 Best West Ham Games of the Premier League Era (50 - 41)

50. Cambridge United (h) 2-0 : 1992/93 Division 1
(Speedie (47), C Allen (90))

In a tremendously on brand turn of events, West Ham voted for the creation of the Premier League and then promptly got relegated before it could begin. So we begin our list of the best games of the Premier League era in the newly created Division 1. Excellent. 

This was a slightly curious match for me, as I queued for the only time in my life to try and get into the South Bank on the day of its farewell. Perhaps unsurprisingly I was left locked out and ended up following this game through the medium of radio, garbled messages on the Barking Road, crowd noises and quite possibly the TV, but I can't recall exactly. Either way it's one of the few games on here that I didn't see in the flesh. 

With this being the final day of the season we needed a win to secure our promotion to the Premier League  while Cambridge needed a victory to stay up. A nervy first half was helped along by news that promotion rivals Portsmouth were losing to Grimsby and things improved further when David Speedie smashed in a smart opener two minutes after the break. This was a particularly weird plot twist as Speedie may well be the most hated West Ham player of my lifetime. 

A nervy half would follow as Portsmouth took the lead in their game, and Cambridge had a goal narrowly ruled out for offside, but Ian Bishop and Julian Dicks combined to set up Clive Allen for a last minute tap in. By this point the stands were overflowing to the point that fans were simply standing on the touchline and a pitch invasion soon followed. Never has so much Bukta been seen in one place. 

49. Sheffield Wednesday (h) 4-3 : 1999/00 Premier League
(Wanchope (28), Di Canio (62 p), Foe (70), Lampard (76) - Rudi (38), Jonk (48), Booth (66))

When talking about Upton Park on a recent commentary, Gary Neville described it as having a "touch of madness" about it. By the end of the twentieth century, Harry Redknapp had built a team which epitomised this as he seemed to view defending as a sort of optional extra and in 1998/99 fashioned a team which somehow finished fifth in the league with a negative goal difference. That laissez faire approach to defensive organisation tended to lead to thumping away defeats but a succession of utterly crazy home games where no deficit seemed too great to overcome. 

In November 1999, we saw one such barnburner as bottom of the league Sheffield Wednesday rolled into town to face their hated old boy Paolo di Canio, and after 66 minutes were 3-2 up following a fantastic thumping header from Andy Booth. Shortly after, Danny Sonner was sent off for fouling di Canio and within six minutes two goals from Marc Viven-Foe and Frank Lampard had sealed a bonkers win. Wednesday would end up being relegated, which sort of seems fitting if you are so bad that you let Foe score against you. 

These two people do not look like they should be playing a professional sport against each other

48. Wolverhampton Wanderers (h) 3-1 : 1992/93 Division 1
(Morley (58), Dicks (63 p), Holmes (87) - Bull (57))

Sometimes games of football are not about football. In March 1993 Bobby Moore passed away and for the first time in my life I saw collective grief. I still vividly recall the sight of the Upton Park gates being draped with flowers and scarves of all teams, and the pindrop minutes silence before the game as the players gathered around a floral number 6 in the middle of the pitch. This felt like less of a football match and more a kind of communal memorial wake. 

We fell behind to a fabulous goal from Steve Bull, before Trevor Morley equalised almost immediately with a goal that featured Julian Dicks decapitating a man in the buildup. Dicks briefly stopped the Highlander imitations to howitzer home a penalty to give us the lead, before Matt Holmes finished things off with a neatly taken third. I rarely believe in destiny but there are certain games that football teams simply are preordained to win, and this was one.

I think the general tone around Moore has become increasingly mawkish and sentimental but in 1993 there was a genuine and tangible sense of sadness that engulfed the ground that day. It was a fitting way to say goodbye. 

47. Spurs (h) 2-1 : 1998/99 Premier League
(Sinclair (39, 46) - Armstrong (72))

The first of a number of games against Spurs, although there is an argument that this shouldn't make the cut given the utter mediocrity of late 90's Tottenham sides. However, the importance of this result was that it saw us go second in the table as we moved into December. We would promptly drop to sixth by losing 4-0 at Leeds a week later but that's both beside and exactly the point. This was an unusually upwardly mobile side, filled with all the inconsistency of a West Ham Nineties team. 

This match was highlighted by brilliant performances from Eyal Berkovic, who ran rings around a pedestrian Spurs midfield, and Trevor Sinclair who bagged both goals to win the game. The second, in particular, was a fantastic outside of the foot finish as he ran on to an inch perfect through ball from Paul Kitson. 

We may roll our eyes at the continuous playground taunts from our North London friends about these games being our cup finals, but we can't ignore that they just carry a bit more weight than the average London derby. This period marked possibly the only extended time in my fandom where we were clearly better than Spurs. 

46. Manchester United (h)  1-1  : 1994/95 Premier League
(Hughes (31) - McClair (52))

This might well be in the top ten most famous games in Premier League history, but I can't quite bring myself to place it higher given the relative lack of meaning for us. I'd rather celebrate achievements of our own than the failure of others. Still, this was one of those games to tell the grandkids that well, yes, you were there. 

With this being the final game of the season, we went into the match safe from relegation whereas Manchester United needed to win in order to try and snatch the title from Blackburn Rovers. We took a deserved first half lead through a smart Michael Hughes finish, after which things descended into an hourlong attack versus defence exercise which primarily involved Andy Cole wasting gilt edged chances as Ludek Miklosko had the game of his life. 

Paul Ince in a Manchester United shirt!

Brian McClair equalised in the second half but we held on, which was just as well for Blackburn as they had fluffed their lines totally at Anfield and lost 2-1. In the end, a win would have been enough for Alex Ferguson but for the second time in quick succession he was denied at Upton Park, and our reputation as a bellwether away fixture for potential champions was cemented. 

This also had the added effect of denying a league title to hated former player Paul Ince, and cementing one for the popular alumni Tony Gale, which was a nice moment if you are into such things. Which we all undeniably are. 

45. Reading (a) 3-0  : 2007/08 Premier League
(Bellamy (6), Etherington (49, 90))

One of our more curious rivalries that has sprung up in recent years is the one we have with Reading. It stems back to the time we poached Alan Pardew from them, continued as we edged them out of the 2004-05 playoffs, went on through their 6-0 drubbing of us in the dreadful 2006-07 season and then back into the Championship when Jack Collison made himself something of a hero by clobbering Jimmy Kebe after the latter started showboating on yet another a typically dire away day at the Madjeski. 

In the midst of all that came a simultaneous moment of redemption and a glimpse into a future we would never have. Alan Curbishley presided over that 6-0 defeat on New Years Day 2007 and thus will have taken great pleasure in this thumping win just eight months later. 

For the first time, Craig Bellamy started a game alongside Dean Ashton, and the two were soon causing Reading all sorts of problems. Bellamy opened the scoring after just six minutes, and then combined to set up Matthew Etherington for the first of two excellent goals just a minute into the second half. That dream strike pairing looked tremendous and for the first time in years, fans began to ponder what a really good team might look like. Naturally they would start just one more game together before Ashton was lost to injury and Bellamy had agitated his way to Manchester City. But for one glorious afternoon at the Madjeski, we had something to dream on. 

44. Blackburn (h) 2-0 : 1994/95 Premier League
(Rieper (50), Hutchison (83))

Just weeks before denying Manchester United the title, we had chucked a similar spanner in the works of Blackburn Rovers who visited us with an 8 point lead over Manchester United and the title seemingly sewn up. By contrast we were in the bottom four, which was material as this was the season that four teams were to be relegated in order to reduce the Premier League to twenty. 

Although we were unbeaten in six, the congested table and a lack of wins was causing great consternation, particularly with Blackburn, Liverpool and Manchester United still to play. As it was we turned in a fabulous performance and deservedly beat the champions elect. The first goal came from Marc Rieper, recipient of one of my favourite Harry Redknapp quotes ("He's 6"4, speaks perfect English and looks like Superman. We all hate him"), and the game was wrapped up with a late Don Hutchison winner. In between we kept the famous SAS partnership of Shearer and Sutton in check, and made the title race interesting again. Not a bad days work. 

43. Southampton (h) 2-1 : 1996/97 Premier League
(Hughes (73), Dicks (81p) - Heaney (19))

Our 1996/97 season was, by anyone's standards, bonkers. We began with a forward line of Steve Jones and Iain Dowie, cycled through Tony Cottee and Mike Newell, briefly flirted with Florin Raducioiu and Paulo Futre before desperately bringing in John Hartson and Paul Kitson to save the season in February.

And while the campaign is probably best remembered for a typical late season surge to avoid relegation, there was also this insane early season game which might be one of the most purely entertaining matches seen at Upton Park in the twentieth century.  

By August we were something of an oddity in the Premier League as we dabbled with bringing in large numbers of overseas players and briefly earned the nickname of the West Ham United Nations before bigger clubs began to do the same. Against an all British XI from Southampton - albeit one featuring the brilliant Matthew Le Tissier - we turned in a barmy performance that involved us going a goal behind and then simply throwing on attackers until we eventually snatched a late win through Michael Hughes and a Julian Dicks penalty. Francis Benali then added a nicely stereotypical red card to proceedings by attempting to murder Futre in the dying minutes. 

Famous West Ham No 10 Paulo Futre

The highlight of the day was unquestionably seeing Futre briefly conjuring memories of his former self, a brilliant player who joined us far too late in his career to ever be much more than a ghost of the artisan who had graced Europe priorly. By the end of this game we essentially had a two man midfield of Hughes and Danny Williamson, with a forward line of Futre, Ilie Dumitrescu, Florin Raducioiu and Iain Dowie. Can't imagine how we ended up in a relegation battle. 

I've linked to the full, albeit grainy, Match of the Day recap for this one. It's well worth eight minutes of your time.

42. Manchester City (N) 0-3 : 2018/19 Women's FA Cup Final
( - Walsh (52), Stanway (81), Hemp (88))

Sometimes you can win while losing. Not often, but sometimes. This was one such occurrence as the newly professional West Ham Women made a remarkable run to the FA Cup final, before bravely falling to the better funded, better paid and, well, just better Manchester City. 

This should have been the best attended Women's FA Cup Final in history, with two Premier League clubs and one based in London but the FA ended those hopes by scheduling the game on the same Saturday as a full slate of Premier League games. With the the men at home to Southampton, and the Premier League refusing to rearrange the kick off time, the game attracted "only" 43,264 which was a pretty good effort in the circumstances, but a terribly missed opportunity as 50,000 potential fans went to the London Stadium instead of this game. It bemuses me that the authorities still seem to believe that the key to the success of the professional women's game is attracting new fans rather than trying to build on the back of established fanbases. 

West Ham actually had the better of the first half as their psychopathic work rate restricted City admirably, and indeed they should have taken the lead but Jane Ross was denied by a smart save from Karen Bardsley with a point blank header. They faded badly in the second half, however, although conceding two in the last nine minutes put an unfairly one sided slant to the result. 

But, in the wider scheme of things, this wasn't so much about the outcome but the simple fact that women were able to represent West Ham at Wembley. After decades of male oppression, to hear "Bubbles" ring around the national stadium while eleven women wore our colours with distinction felt like a seismic moment. To have been able to witness it with my daughter made it even more special. Watching players like Claire Rafferty, Adriana Leon, Kate Longhurst and Gilly Rafferty run themselves into the ground for our club - her club - was something worth waiting a long time to see. 

41. Leicester (h) 4-3 : 1997/98 Premier League
(Lampard (15), Abou (31, 74), Sinclair (65) - Cottee (59, 83), Heskey (66))

I don't think it's all that much of a surprise that a large number of these games take place on the final day of the season, when our tremendously "ahfuckit" approach to defending really comes into its own. 

This was an absurd game, that could as easily have taken place on a school playground as a Premier League pitch. Both teams entered the day with an outside shot at qualifying for Europe which was a pretty good achievement as we couldn't even get a sponsor in those days. 

We raced out into a two goal lead with excellent strikes from Frank Lampard and Samassi Abou, before Tony Cottee dragged Leicester back into it with a smart finish. Trevor Sinclair and Emile Heskey then exchanged goals before Abou seemingly sealed it with another fine finish. However, Cottee popped up with another late strike to leave us all squirming for the final ten minutes as Leicester employed a Rush Goalie and we tried out the hitherto alien concept of trying to stop them scoring. 

We finished the season in eighth position, albeit we should really have finished higher but for a disastrous end to the campaign, which saw us win just two of our final eight fixtures. Looking back I don't think we ever really got over the disappointment of losing two cup quarter finals to Arsenal in the same season, including an FA Cup penalty shoot out that was apparently scripted by Morrisey. 

In Retro - The 50 Best West Ham Games of the Premier League Era (40 - 31)

In Retro - The 50 Best West Ham Games of the Premier League Era (30 - 21)

In Retro - The 50 Best West Ham Games of the Premier League Era (20 - 11)

In Retro - The 50 Best West Ham Games of the Premier League Era (10 - 1)

West Ham 3 - 0 Southampton (And Other Ramblings)

"Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down

And they all led me straight back home to you"

- Gram Parsons, "Return of the Grevious Angel"

It's been a while. 

Since we played. Since we played well. Since we won. Since it felt like it might be safe to look up. Since the most pertinent subject for one of these columns was the action on the pitch rather than off. And it's been nearly six years since we were able to cruise into the relative comfort of a three goal half time lead, having last done it against Fulham in 2012. But, you know, Fulham.

We are the Mark Hughes Appreciation Society

So what an afternoon this was. For all the gloom that hangs over this season like 1930's smog, it can't be denied that this was a beautiful blast of sunshine in the darkness. From the exhilarating start, through the gift of a two goal lead to that glorious third, this was an afternoon to savour. This was a day to make you remember why we do this. Why we throw down our money even when we expect nothing and of how sometimes football can take you and elevate your spirit. 

It is worth remembering that this game was supposed to take place at St Mary's. Our August fixture was switched in order to accommodate the reinstallation of that state of the art scaffolding that now adorns our rented home, and we duly crashed 3-2 on the South Coast to a last minute penalty, because West Ham. 

Who knows what might have happened had we been at home. Maybe we would have won and kickstarted our season and Slaven Bilic might still be here. Perhaps we'd still have been beaten and instead of having this fixture at home, been forced to go on the road in search of points. It matters not now, but to the extent that you think London Stadium fixtures are an advantage then it's worth noting that we are in that stage of the season where it's non negotiable that we start to get results. Losing here was unthinkable. 

And for David Moyes, now was the time to show that all that early praise was warranted. After all, plucky defeats at Manchester City are only useful if you then build upon that foundation. Initially he seemed able to do that, before running into typically West Hamian obstacles such as players having sellotape for hamstrings and selling your top scorer in the transfer window and replacing him with someone called Jordan. 

I didn't especially care that the players went to Miami for warm weather training or that they, gasp, went to the beach when they were there. In fact, I would much rather that the club did a few more things that fans didn't appreciate or understand so long as it was done in service of a wider, broader plan that was designed to take this club forward. Whether we are there yet or not, I don't know, but the opening seventeen minutes of this match were justification enough for the activities of the last fortnight. 

***

"I'm aware you're tired and lost"

- The War on Drugs, "Pain"

If you are facing a life or death struggle, it is generally considered helpful to face a suicidal opponent. Never was this better exemplified than the opening quarter of this match, when Southampton appeared to be wandering around in a cyanide fever dream, desperately trying to find new and exciting ways to gift us goals. 

L.O. Fucking. L

Saints began with all the urgency of a London Stadium ballboy, and never really improved from there. Mario Lemina started things off by getting dispossesed in our half and then chugging back as Cheikhou Kouyate stormed away down the unmanned right hand side. His cross picked out Joao Mario on the edge of the box, and the Portuguese made a difficult, thrilling finish look easy as he took two swift touches and rifled it past the flailing Alex McCarthy. 

This was a David Sullivan wet dream, as any risk of riot or protest was swept away with that goal. One could almost feel the confidence coursing through the stadium as both the home fans and team began to cotton on to the fact that Southampton were absolutely there for the taking. Marko Arnautovic should have made it two nil when Mark Noble slipped him through with a lovely reverse pass, only for the Austrian to skew wide when it really did seem impossible not to score. It proved immaterial as Mario shortly picked him out again with a tremendous cross, and after McCarthy saved his initial header brilliantly, the rebound fell straight to him to tap home and double the lead. Marko then looked up and gave Mark Hughes the crossed Hammers, which I thoroughly approved of as Mark Hughes is such a dickhead you can imagine that he said his wedding vows passive aggressively. 

Even with HammerKiller Charlie Austin up front, Southampton looked about as interested in attacking action as the referee in the Anthony Joshua fight, and with Declan Rice imperious, there seemed little serious threat of a comeback. That was all rendered moot with our third, right on the cusp of half time and a salutary lesson to all those who decided to risk trying to beat the fifteen minute half time toilet queues. 

Arthur Masuaku was freed on the left after some nice interplay between Kouyate and Cresswell. He carried it forward, but rather than take on Soares instead chose to whip a sumptuous crossfield swerving cross in behind the retreating defence, where Arnautovic met it with a glorious cushioned side foot finish. Had it been scored on another day, in another stadium, for another team, we would be hearing about this goal endlessly. Unfurling like an A3 masterpiece rolled out along a workbench, it was the most beautiful "fuck you" that a man could ever give to his former boss. I really don't understand why a club as progressive as Southampton have hired a manager as regressive as Hughes, but for one afternoon only, it made for a lovely picture show. 

I actually have quite a soft spot for Southampton in the post Nigel Adkins era, and have followed their progress closely after we were both promoted together in 2012. They appear well run, with savvy decision makers, a thriving academy and a clear plan for how to progress their club. In short, they are everything West Ham are not. But, for all that, they have declined as we have, and after this result must surely be fearful of the drop. 

In many ways, their situation is the example that should be held up for UEFA and the Premier League as an example of the damage they are doing to the game. Saints have produced Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Gareth Bale, Adam Lallana, Callum Chambers, Luke Shaw and James Ward-Prowse. They have also introduced Victor Wanyama, Dejan Lovren, Virgil Van Dijk, Sadio Mane and Mauricio Pochettino to the English game. They also fleeced our idiot chairman of eight million quid for Jose Fonte, but ending up on the right side of a transfer deal with West Ham isn't much of a badge of honour these days.

That they have been cherry picked and deprived of those players by bigger, richer, UEFA funded teams such as Spurs and Liverpool is a grave cause for concern. Quite what has happened to all that money is probably another question, but the broader point is that cash isn't an issue to Champions League clubs because they are given revenue streams that the rest of us cannot access. 

But while all of that is reason to stand in sympathy with our South Coast brethren in the Brotherhood of Lower Half Teams Hoping to Make a Cup Final and Not Get Relegated, it didn't much matter here. Their team were awful. 

***

"Baby baby, sweet baby

You left me hurting' in a real cold way"

- Aretha Franklin, "Since You've Been Gone (Sweet Sweet Baby)"

Something was different today. For the first time in two months we were able to call upon Arthur Masuaku on the left, and his ability to retain possession while drawing men to him, was vital. While West Ham were superior to Southampton all over the pitch, that ability to carry the ball from deep positions is something we have been sorely lacking in these recent shellackings and was a key difference here. 

I'm not sure that the Caley Graphics xG map is all that useful today as it doesn't tell the tale that the visitors never actually had a shot in anger until after they went three down. In fact the second half of this game was really very Series Two of Heroes, whereby a very promising start just dissipated away completely. Of course, that matters rather less in Premier League matches than it does in network television shows, but I will say that watching Aaron Cresswell nearly volley home an outrageous Mario free kick was more entertaining than anything that Claire the cheerleader did second time around. 

With the visitors forced to commit men to wide areas to stop Masuaku advancing, that ensured the central midfield was a less congested place than usual, and the prime beneficiary was Joao Mario, who flitted around purposefully and ensured that we didn't miss Manuel Lanzini as much as we might. It is true that in heavier duty encounters he might not be a luxury that we can afford but it can't be ignored that his two early contributions were the reason we were two nil up so quickly. 

Just like West Ham, obviously

What was also noticeable in this game was that we looked rock solid defensively. Angelo Ogbonna is my Hammer of the Year so far, having been our best defender, scored a winner at Wembley against Spurs and never once elbowing anybody in the face and getting sent off in the first half of a game, and he was excellent here again. However, the key to our solidity was the teenager Rice, who came off two stellar performances for Ireland in midweek which, my cousins inform me, have already led to him being called Decenbauer in the Emerald Isle. 

What is so impressive about the youngster is that he seems to have such an innate understanding of his own game. His reading of play is outstanding and every time Saints looked like they might be inching into dangerous areas, he appeared to snuff out the danger. We have been dreadful at identifying good young defenders in recent years - primarily because we've only been trying to buy old ones - but perhaps the academy has finally solved a problem for us. The idea of giving James Collins a new contract when you have a talent like this to replace him is crazy. The Welshman has been a faithful servant but it is time to drag our defence out of the dial up era and into the digital age. There is, after all, nothing intrinsically wrong with having mobile players in your team. 

And perhaps the greatest reminder of that came when Edmilson Fernandes was introduced for the now seemingly permanently injured Michail Antonio after just nine minutes. Fernandes played in an old fashioned right half role and was, frankly, everywhere. I've never been completely on board with the idea that all of our problems would magically resolve themselves if everyone just ran about a bit more, but you couldn't deny the impact of a mobile pressing midfielder here. That ability to pressure Saints led to several turnovers, which led to all of our goals, and also led to Mark Hughes suddenly busying himself as Arnautovic was substituted. Schadenfreude really can be quite the laugh. 

Michail and the Hamstring Theory

As for Antonio, he got injured kicking the ball so I don't really know what to make of him anymore. Some say he overtrains, others that he doesn't train enough, but either way hamstring issues for a player of his explosive physicality are very bad news. If they can get a decent amount for him in the summer I would be inclined to take it. Let someone else do the job of patching him up and trying to find a position where his defensive frailties won't matter. On a day of almost unrestrained joy, watching him limp off in tears was a salutary reminder that injuries remain one of our biggest problems. After all, it takes a remarkable turn of events to have a three week break and get to the end of it with fewer fit players than you started with. 

***

"See if you can tick the man go downtown,

Where all you skins and mods you get together, make pretend it's 1969 forever"

- Babyshambles, "Delivery" 

I'm not going to talk much about off field issues this time around. 

Well maybe a little, but sometimes we all just need to take a break from such matters. Now and again it's alright to let one pass by outside the off stump without offering a shot. I could comment upon David Sullivan using the club to avoid tax, Karren Brady giving the most self immolating interview of her career, Sullivan sitting down with WHUISA and agreeing to consider a fan on the board or even the emergency SAB meeting which seemingly operated as a way for the Board to get Trevor Brooking to tell us all to stop whinging. 

But sometimes that stuff has to take a backseat. Occasionally one has to focus on the task at hand, and here today that was picking up a win against a fellow struggler. After all, I have vehemently argued against the notion that going down would in any way be a good thing for the club. Too many innocent people lose their jobs, too much good work is undone and the clock is reset too far. 

So I agree with those who say that the team must come first. 

But it should be noted that there is a lot of momentum to the fan movement just now. In the last three weeks I have been asked to comment on stories for The Independent, Bloomberg and Spiegel, written a piece for The Guardian, declined interviews with Talksport and ITV News, and had my articles quoted without permission in Metro, the Irish Independent and by the Press Association. I say none of that to try and suggest that I am some sort of pre-eminent commentator on West Ham - quite the opposite in fact. Each post on The H List is read by around 2,000 people, of whom about half are outside of the UK, a quarter are related to me and the rest are in prison and have restricted internet access. There is a further readership at KUMB.com and that is it. I highly doubt if this column is anywhere near the top ten most visited fan sites for West Ham supporters. 

But if a tiny blog like this can get some traction then this is a big story. We will probably never again have such a global platform upon which to float our views. There is little doubt that the protests at the Burnley game have stirred an interest far beyond the usual audience for such pieces, because there is a perfect confluence of public interest around the stadium, the highly visible public figures involved, a political slant, the inherent distrust that football fans have for football club owners and, of course, lots and lots of money. 

And so, for those who take the let's-just-survive-now-and-sort-it-out-in-the-summer line, it has to be acknowledged that this is manna from heaven for Sullivan and Gold. They want nothing more than to push all this down the road, and promise to get it fixed in the next transfer window. At this point, after years of saying that exact thing, it is basically their mantra. 

It puts us in an invidious position as fans. Protest and try to affect immediate and necessary change within our club, but with possible devastating side effects on the team. Somehow, there has even be a suggestion from Moyes that the Burnley protests would affect our ability to attract world class players in the summer, to which I say - well, what's been the excuse up until now then?

But let's forget that for now. Because on days like today one has to remember that we do support a football team, after all. I alternate taking my two oldest daughters to games, and for the eldest this was her first win at the London Stadium in two years of trying. And when Masuaku found Arnautovic floating on the back of an errant defender, and he cushioned home that magical third goal, it felt like the wait had been worth it. In that single moment, he demonstrated better than I ever could the glories  that might lie ahead if she was just prepared to persevere through rain and riot and repeated heartbreak. And walking home, through streets that had previously only ever offered up sad, contemplative reflection we were at last able to talk excitedly of goals and victories. We have won eight league games this season, and just six at home. Let's savour this one. 

Southampton 3 - 2 West Ham (And Other Ramblings)

It's impossible, it feels to me, to be able to accurately convey the feeling of being a West Ham fan to other people. We can try, certainly, but the reality is that all football fans are convinced they are on a rollercoaster journey of zeniths and nadirs that is unmatched anywhere else in the world. There are Manchester United fans who will genuinely look you in the eye and tell you without irony that it is agony supporting their team, despite the fact that the entire sport is geared towards making sure they win. That's just the essence of being a fan. We all need to feel it's a glorious test of loyalty.

A look that just screams "experienced, error free defending"

But this game... this game might just be the very essence of supporting West Ham. The perfect distillation of agony and ecstasy, bravery and incompetence, Hernandez and Fonte, stupid David Sullivan decisions and even stupider David Sullivan decisions. I want you to pull up a chair, sit down there, pull on your Robert Snodgrass replica top and let me tell you about the day that West Ham went to St Mary's and West Hammed the absolute almighty fuck out of this game of football. 

***

The story begins months ago, in March 2015, when Winston Reid signed a new six and a half year deal with the club. This would have taken him to his age 33 season which everybody knows is when centre backs are just about to hit their prime. Because of this our genius Director of Football, Professor David Sullivan, decided that we also needed to buy out another two years of Reid's career meaning that on the cusp of this game he signed yet another contract extension. This pointless endeavour now means that we get to pay Reid right the way up until he is 35 years old. Remember gang, long term planning is for wusses. 

The way you can tell this is a good idea, by the way, is simply by checking how many 35 year old centre backs started in the Premier League this weekend. None. Boy, it feels great to be a trailblazer. West Ham, ladies and gentlemen.

Anyway, flush with his new contract Reid promptly got injured in the warm up for this game because of course he fucking did. There is nothing more West Ham in the universe than new signings getting stretchered off, even when they're just contract extensions.

Into the team came Angelo Ogbonna, himself a recent recipient of a long term extension whilst recovering from an operation, who had been dropped after doing a passable impersonation of a kindly doorman at Old Trafford last week - "None shall pass! Except you! And you! Oh go on then, you too!". So one game into the season, half of the back four who had presumably been training together all pre season were out. We were rapidly approaching peak West Ham and the game hadn't even bloody started. 

***

It's been a bad week for statues in the South. In the US they are wanting to pull down these unmoving, rigid monuments to another time, and replace them with something more appropriate. At West Ham we just buy them from Southampton for £8m. And so it was that Jose Fonte had a first half here that could have been painted by Hieronymous Bosch, so hellish was it. 

Jose Fonte marks Manolo Gabbiadini for the opening goal

Despite having stocked up on cod liver oil before the start, Jose looked miles off the pace. Saints hadn't scored at home since April, but if doctors were going to prescribe treatment for such ailments this West Ham team would be at the top of the list. As such it took all of eleven minutes for Manolo Gabbiadini to run in behind the Portuguese and score the exact same goal he scored against us in February. On another day I might have questioned Joe Hart's positioning but until he plays with an actual back four in front of him there's no point making any judgements. 

Things somehow got worse from there as we looked hopelessly ineffective going forward and totally disorganised defensively. Southampton could have had a second before Marko Arnautovic - another of Professor Sullivan's new arrivals - decided that the only possible way to improve things was to elbow Jack Stephens in the face. It led to a deserved red card, and in reality is the kind of incident where the perpetrator can consider himself lucky to only get a three match ban. On a day when our new signings seemed to forget they were no longer at their previous clubs, the Austrian went full Stoke at the moment we least needed it. 

Arnautovic's lapse was so brainless that it would almost four minutes before any other West Ham player did something so stupid. This time, Fonte got himself the wrong side of Steven Davis and made up for it by dragging him down by the neck. It was a blatant penalty and even though Dusan Tadic - the worst penalty taker in the universe - took the kick it deflected off Hart and in. 

***

The first thirty eight minutes of this game were a painful dagger to the notion that this West Ham team is going to be different. On a day when the sun was broiling, and the heat was like a character in the action that needed to be acknowledged and factored into the plot, this was supposed to be the day our season started. Many fans were content to write off the opening day debacle at Old Trafford - you can't expect to win there, they said. If we can't expect to win there with a team bought and constructed with the sole purpose of winning right now then we'll never win there, I thought, but that's an argument for another day.

The weather was glorious. Players were returning. Hope was rising. This was the start. 

It should have been a home game, of course. If it had, you rather fancy things might have turned out differently. It's rare for teams to concede two penalties and have a player sent off in a home match, even in a stadium as sterile as ours. On another day, in our postcode, it is possible Tadic wouldn't have even been on the pitch to take his penalty. His early mistimed lunge at Hernandez might have returned a different colour card if fifty thousand home fans had been able to give their opinion on it. As it was, referee Lee Mason waved a yellow and cultivated the sense of injustice that seemingly led Arnautovic to remove his cerebrum. 

At 2-0 and a man down, it was impossible to see a way back. Only proper teams fight back from such situations. Teams who are organised, pacey and motivated can face such odds and defy them. This just isn't in the West Ham DNA, to be honest. In my thirty years of watching, such comebacks can be counted on one hand, like the number of actual jokes in the entire run of The Big Bang Theory. True West Ham fans were hunkering down, preparing for the worst. Maybe keep it to 4-0 against this team who haven't scored in 500 minutes and that won't be a bad result. We'll go again next week. We always do well at Newcastle, don't we?

And then, hope. 

***

Let's face it, if the first half of this game was everything shit about supporting West Ham, then the second was the reason we all go. This was a reason to believe. This was life affirming.

Michail Antonio has been out for months. He started this game, somewhat surprisingly but then between injuries and the failure of Professor Sullivan's January arrival - Snodgrass - we're a bit light on wide players. Antonio eased his way into the action, but when we needed him most he stood up like Ethan Hawke in Dead Poets Society. "Oh captain, my captain. I'll do your running". A man light, he simply took on the work of two men and began to carry the ball through the weak looking home midfield with energy and purpose. 

West Ham's second half. Fuckin' A

Our first came on the cusp of half time, when Antonio had no right to turn or shoot but managed to do both, and Fraser Forster parried weakly for Hernandez to score the kind of unremarkable but entirely necessary goal that it feels we have been doing without for years. 

At 2-1 down, there wasn't much more reason to believe than the simple fact that that's what we're supposed to do, but the second half was different in almost every way. Where we lacked cohesiveness and purpose we now had unity and ambition. Antonio was doing yeoman labour, but Hernandez was covering himself in glory too. Shifted to an unfamiliar left sided position he dutifully did his defensive work and when the time came, made slamming home the equaliser look far easier than it was.

The truth of that second half is that we were as good then as we were inept in the first. Young Declan Rice and Mark Noble held the midfield and Cresswell and Zabaleta coped manfully with the twin Southampton creative threats of Redmond and Tadic. Indeed, it was only when James Ward-Prowse joined the fray that the home side looked like being an attacking threat again. There was no pace to our play particularly - there can't be with such a slow team - but through repeated and persistent knocking on the door Cresswell and Sakho prised it open just enough for the Little Pea to slip through and give us hope. A comeback from absolutely nowhere, the kind to have you belting out "Bubbles" long into the night, and falling headfirst back in love with everything you believed when you first fell in love with football.

West Ham, ladies and gentlemen. 

***

Remember though, we're telling the story of West Ham here, a walking Greek tragedy of a football team. Whilst it's easy to blame the late lapse on some sort of lifelong gypsy hex, the reality is the team were exhausted by their efforts with ten men and a pre season fitness regime that seems to have produced a team in the image of Dawn French. It's almost as though playing German third division teams isn't great preparation for the Premier League. 

West Ham are about to salvage a point, you say?

And so it came to pass that a long, searching Ward-Prowse pass arced into our area with just seconds to go. The target was home centre back Maya Yoshida, who would have needed to have been Spiderman to have actually done anything with it. At that precise moment, it was possible to see why Professor Sullivan was so keen to sign 32 year old Zabaleta. The Argentine used all his experience to usher the ball out of play and shepherd us to an unlikely, but season launching point. Except he didn't. Of course he fucking didn't. 

I can see Zabaleta's point of view. He's been making that challenge for years at Manchester City and not getting pinged for it. Had he been playing for Manchester City in this game it wouldn't have been given. It was a marginal call, and when in doubt Premier League referees will always err on the side of a decision that won't be analysed for twenty minutes on Monday Night Football, or require a column from Jeff Winter in a newspaper. The problem is that games between West Ham and Southampton don't attract that kind of attention, so referees will just make normal, regular decisions. He's lost the protection of the Abu Dhabi millions. 

To call Lee Mason a cheat for awarding a penalty is to fundamentally misunderstand referees. They don't care who wins so long as they get an easy life. They're humans and so they act like humans. They get most things right, some things wrong and every now and again they can be influenced by large crowds. That's not cheating.

Would that penalty have been given for Southampton against Manchester City? No. Would it have been given at the Olympic Stadium? Less likely, but possibly. Would I have wanted it if it had been up the other end? You bet your life I would. We can't complain - Zabaleta just needs to remember who he's playing for now. It's the entire bloody reason we signed him, after all. 

After that, the penalty was taken by a player that Professor Sullivan publicly insulted last season, who promptly scored his first goal in nine months after our captain convinced him to put it the other side because Joe Hart knew what way he was going. West Ham, ladies and gentlemen. 

***

So what are we supposed to make of all this? I guess it depends upon how you choose to view results so far. If last season is a single, discrete event that you have wrapped up and parked on a shelf then I guess it is too early to make judgements. One away game against the best looking, most expensive team in the league and another where we played the majority of the game with ten men are no barometer of anything. Equally, our best player has yet to appear and as is customary at this time of year, we have plenty of injuries. Other teams hit the opening weeks at full speed, whereas we use them to get our players fit. It's little wonder we get off to such routinely awful starts.

But for those who see Bilic's reign through the longer lens, then this is all just the continuation of the same old stuff. Since we were last at St Mary's we've played 16 games and won 3. That's the sort of nonsense that got Allardyce fired, and he never had the kind of financial backing that Bilic is getting. More tellingly is that fact that we've kept only four clean sheets in that time, despite him playing three different goalkeepers, and at least seven different defensive set ups that I can remember. 

Guys, why is nobody defending?

Some of you will scream about injuries, as though this is somehow new or unique. Injuries are so endemic to West Ham that it is time to stop thinking of them as an unusual circumstance and instead accept that they are a simple fact for West Ham managers. Bilic will always have someone injured and so he needs to develop a way of playing that is less dependent upon individuals and more built towards the strengths of the group. I despised Allardyce's style of play, but I accept that he fashioned a system that meant players could come and go and not be confused by what they were supposed to be doing. Does anybody think our current system amounts to much more than "Oh well, Lanzini will be back soon"?

Having watched Bilic's teams for two seasons I have no idea how he wants to play. He asked for pace in his team this summer and got none, so now I don't know if he's a shill for the board or if he's changed his mind and he is happy having a side this pedestrian. We are lacking depth in the centre of midfield and yet Reece Oxford is off playing in the Bundesliga for reasons I cannot fathom. He doesn't seem to think either of his left backs are any good and signed a goalkeeper when he had a perfectly good one already. Perhaps the most obvious example of the totally disjointed thinking surrounding the club was spending £10m on Robert Snodgrass to replace Payet, replacing him with £24m Marko Arnautovic six months later and then banishing him from the squad altogether when he might have been very useful on a day like this one. He is currently being hawked round Championship sides with Professor Sullivan apparently bemused that his value has dropped so much in six months. Someone please explain to the Professor that perhaps the problem is he overpaid unnecessarily to start with. 

It's worth remembering all of that when you read about the board quibbling over a £5.5m gap in the valuation of William Carvalho with Sporting Lisbon. Perhaps if someone at the club - ANYONE - had more of an idea about squad building and transfers, we wouldn't have to worry about such a relatively small amount. 

***

In the end, I've landed here. I'm terrified about the parallels to 2002/03, but it's far too early to judge this particular team. If nothing else, Bilic is still clearly able to motivate his team to play for him, and that is certainly worth something. I think you have to give them ten games, the return of Lanzini and (I guess?) Carroll before making any firm pronouncements. 

But equally, saying "It's just two games" is disingenuous bullshit.  None of these problems are new  - none of them. Read what Rich Sprent had to say about all of this after the game on Saturday. The facts are dismal reading - 92 goals conceded in the last 50 league games played! How is that sustainable? £20m on Andre Ayew and still no obvious answer to where he should be playing? A sudden drop in net spend after years spent wasting it like a wedding planner? It's not really a surprise that the team play so incoherently when all around them is chaos.

I've been off the Bilic bandwagon for a while now, despairing of those many gutless surrenders against the top teams last season, but I'm not seeing any reason to jump back on it here. When he does eventually go, it will because of a myriad of reasons. A failure to stand up to the Board when needed, a misplaced belief that he could build a system around a player as unreliable as Carroll and probably the Payet thing too. But in the end, it will boil down to the simple fact that his teams have never, ever been able to defend. It's incredible considering his playing career, but there it is. A team managed by a centre half, that can look glorious going forward and like Gloria Hunniford defending. 

West Ham, ladies and gentlemen. 

Southampton 1 - 3 West Ham (And Other Ramblings)

1. The Reversal

Our pissed Geordie octopus done good

Well, that was quite a week. If you've ever heard the Craig David song "7 Days" - imagine the concept of pure banality set to music, if not - then you'll know what I mean when I say:

Sold our best player on Monday
Didn't buy a right back on Tuesday
Got taken to the cleaners on Wednesday
Self flagellated on Thursday and Friday
Spanked the Saints on Saturday
Chilled on Sunday (*)

(*) I fucking hate the word "chilled". Apply it to vegetables or not at all.

My overriding feeling at the end of this particular week is that I'm not sure any other team in the league could make finishing eleventh quite such a rollercoaster ride.

2. A Darkness More Than Night

With the gloom from Wednesday nights mauling at the hands of Manchester City still pervading over everything, we journeyed down to the South coast more in hope than expectation. Southampton has been an unhappy hunting ground for us for ages, with our last win coming back in 2000 when both teams were playing at different grounds and we started with only three defenders and Kaba Diawara up front, whilst Harry Redknapp was presumably smoking some extremely strong weed in the tactics room.

Going into this one it felt that if we were to get anything from the game it would require us to find a way to target the new Southampton centre back pairing of Jack Stephens and Maya Yoshida. They had been thrown together after Virgil van Dijk went on the injury list and Jose Fonte fulfilled his life long dream of getting a incredible, huge new contract at the age of 33.

As it turned out, we had no time to do that as we conceded a goal after just twelve minutes to Saints debutant, and recent West Ham transfer target, Manolo Gabbiadini. The Italian, who immediately joins Robert Pattinson and Harry Styles on my list of men who look like they need a good shower, ran on to a through ball and positively bazooka'd a shot high over Randolph into the roof of the net. He looked miles offside, although replays suggested he was only marginally offside, which is still fucking offside, but it was a confident, composed finish and somewhere Simone Zaza looks on and wonders.

At that stage it felt like so far, so Man City, but we responded beautifully as Pedro Obiang sliced open that vulnerable Saints rearguard with a perfectly weighted through ball for Carroll to charge on to, like a pissed Geordie combine harvester with the brake off on a slope, and calmly slot past Forster. Interestingly, in the build up Carroll could clearly be seen yelling at Obiang to pass wide to Snodgrass, which Stephens bought like a sucker and Carroll rolled off and on to the pass - one of only three that we completed in the Saints penalty area all game.

Thereafter things were pretty even as Saints kept getting shots away without really taking them from decent areas, and it wasn't that much of a surprise when Obiang rifled home a twenty yard drive just before the break. It looked to take a little deflection on the way through but who the fuck cares, and we had the look of a team about to turn around a deficit for the first time this season.

We sealed things up just after the break when a (not very good) Noble free kick was deflected past Forster at his near post by a crestfallen Steven Davis and we took a 3-1 lead we would never relinquish. After that we took Carroll off because we can't play him too much in case he gets injured, but we can play him enough to not have to worry about getting any back up for him, and thus we saw out the victory like a proper professional team with defenders and matching kit and everything.

For the first time this season I feel like we have won a game where it doesn't have to be qualified by saying "Yeah, but we were only playing...".

3. The Narrows

This game marked the full debut of Robert Snodgrass, who came in over the flu hit Manuel Lanzini. Ostensibly bought to replace Dimitri Payet, the Scotsman had a fantastic game and gave us a proper glimpse into how a post-Payet West Ham might be successful.

Contrary to expectations he didn't play as an out and out winger, and instead operated mostly in the old inside left channel. On the other side Sofiane Feghouli did pretty much the same thing, and with that narrow, constricted formation we choked the life out of Southampton.

Former Hammer David Connolly wrote an excellent pre match piece for The West Ham Way which highlighted both the weakness of the Stephens/Yoshida partnership, but also the attacking threat of the Saints full backs. By flooding into midfield it seemed like we restricted the typical Southampton passing patterns that look to open up space for their full backs to push into and negated their customary wide options.

As you can see from this @11tegen11 passing network, we kept to our compact formation all day and  even though Feghouli offered little in attack, he stuck diligently to his duties and was important in disrupting play.

On the other side Cresswell was able to burst forward again with some of his old joie de vivre, ironically once his French buddy had disappeared. With Payet refusing to do any defensive work, Cresswell had struggled to impact games going forward, but Snodgrass put in a Herculean shift and on several occasions he slipped Cresswell in by drifting inside to free up space on the touchline. Best of all, when the score was 3-1 and we were playing the last twenty minutes without a striker because Bilic was trolling Claude Puel, Snodgrass just ran and ran and ran some more to make up for it. I think his signing was a panicky, poorly judged decision but I'll happily admit that for today and for the short term future, Snodgrass looks a great fit.

It remains to be seen generally if this formation will work against the top 6, who will have better defences and functional, mobile goalkeepers, but this was a timely reminder that when Bilic does his homework, he has just as much ability to impact games as any other manager.

4. The Drop

What will be interesting is what Bilic does next week, when Lanzini will presumably be fit, and Feghouli, Snodgrass and Antonio will be battling it out for two places.

Intuitively it feels like Antonio would revert to a wide right role, and Lanzini would go into the hole behind Carroll and last years 4-2-3-1 would be the way forward. The thing about that, however, is that Antonio has essentially been playing in a 4-4-2 as a second striker and doing a good job of it. Carroll doesn't have the mobility to do the role on his own, so Antonio has helped him in every sense by doubling up his pressing and getting closer to Carroll to pick up flick ons and second balls.

Indeed, look at the map above and it shows Antonio was our most advanced player as he repeatedly foraged beyond Carroll. Sticking him back out wide asks him to do defensive work, which is like asking Piers Morgan to research something, and also deprives us of a central goal threat. It also forces Lanzini to play a role that doesn't really suit him, as he doesn't have Antonio's pace to get beyond Carroll, and instead is utilised much better as a late arriving runner as demonstrated in the Palace and Middlesbrough games recently.

"I'm organising a march for men's rights unless no one signs up, in which case it's a joke"

Having said all of that, I'd probably leave things as they are and bring Lanzini in to partner Obiang, giving us two mobile passers to try and play through the pressing we will face from better teams. Noble was good today, but Obiang was better and the truth is that we need support for Carroll (all we have is Antonio), two wide players (all we have is Snodgrass and Feghouli) and Lanzini should always be in the team. I don't like calling for Noble to sit out, but we need our best players playing.

5. The Burning Room

What's really interesting about that is that completely ignores our best midfielder - Cheikhou Kouyate - who was seen here being totally wasted at right back. He was forced into that emergency role as a result of Sam Byram getting injured on the same day that we decided not to get any cover for him. This was only slightly less teeth grindingly predictable than Donald Trump waking up and tweeting about some batshit crazy thing he saw on Fox News ten minutes before, every morning.

I can expend no more energy on the Olympic sized fuck up that has been our transfer policy lately, but once again the issue is less with the position itself - as Kouyate did his customary good job there -but the fact that we have to keep weakening the team elsewhere in order to cover up the lack of options.

If indeed Byram is fit next week then Kouyate must go straight back into midfield and Obiang must play, which leaves some interesting decisions about Noble, Lanzini and Antonio. Still, better having too many players available than giving game time to the likes of Arbeloa and Tore because it looks like we only have 9 men and all the lads are ringing round their mates to see if anyone is up for game. 

6. The Crossing

Talking of our crazy transfer policy, take a bow Jose Fonte, who played with poise and command to bring a startlingly organised look to our back four. Even more so than Snodgrass, Fonte is a signing for the short term, with a huge premium being paid to get good performances now, before the juju starts to dissipate and his hamstrings acclimatise to West Ham and turn into spaghetti.

He has a serenity about his play that sits nicely next to the slightly frenetic, permanently angry Reid - who plays these days with the demeanour of a furious Maths teacher - and between them they did a decent job of restricting Southampton to some low quality chances.

As you can see here, Saints had tons of chances, but none as good as Carroll's and mostly we did a good job of blocking them or forcing snatched shots. Gabbiadini should have done better when presented with a decent second half chance, but he blazed it over from the six yard line and frankly still could do with a shave and a shampoo as he's looking a bit like Sean Connery at the beginning of The Rock.

I still don't see Fonte as a sensible signing in the long run, but on days like today when we go and win at a difficult opponent, where we never win, with no right back, one fit striker and from a goal down, it would be churlish not to acknowledge the huge part he played.

Over the next few weeks our aim should be to start reducing the volume of chances on our goal, and then to push those chances further from goal reducing their likelihood of going in. As you see here, we give up plenty of chances and are ranked on a par with Bournemouth who just let in six at Everton having taken the bold step of playing the second half with an unusual 0-6-4 formation.

Of course, stopping opposition teams from getting good chances is easier said than done, but blocking more shots, preventing successful passes into our box and generally saving more shots on target are all fairly obvious ways to reduce the threat. I see Fonte as being crucial to the first of those, and if Kouyate goes back into the centre then I would expect to see him impact on the second point.

7. The Poet 

How could I have got all this way into this article without mentioning Pedro Obiang? Against a good team, and with a goal deficit, he stepped up and took control of this game like John Terry at a Champions League trophy presentation.

The pass to Carroll was superbly weighted, his goal was fucking hammered and he trailed only Kouyate in blocks and tackles. When he plays like this it is easy to forget he is just 24, and still adapting to the English game. He gave a fascinating interview to Jacob Steinberg of The Guardian before Christmas in which it was easy to detect his more cerebral approach to both life and football.

My Hammer of the Year is Antonio so this photo makes no sense

I have no idea how the political science degree fits in when the lads are planning their latest trip to Aspers Casino, but he has become a key part of our season as he gives us a mobility, intelligence in possession and physicality that is otherwise lacking. 

I saw lots of debate over the weekend about Obiang's case for Hammer of the Year, which really does feel like the Best Editing Oscar in a season like this, but I don't think Pedro is quite there yet. Antonio has played everywhere, uncomplainingly and while still scoring all our goals and starring in about twenty highly amusing YouTube clips. That said, a few more games like this and Obiang is certainly in the mix. 

8. The Black Echo

Now feels like a reasonable time to ask - has this been a good season or not? By reading this blog you'd have said "possibly" after last Saturday and "Christ, no" after Wednesday. That's kind of the point; that The H List is supposed to be an in-the-moment assessment of each game, reflecting the immediacy of the many rich and varying emotions that come with losing 4-2 at home to Watford and then following that up with a 4-2 shit sandwich at West Brom the following week.

We currently sit in ninth, eight points down on the same stage as last year and twelve points down when comparing results to the same fixtures from 2015-16. But still in the top half, and just five points behind next opponents West Brom. Only Leicester are worse in this year on year comparison, as the devil has apparently come calling on that Faustian pact they signed to turn into a good team last season.

If we look more closely at our record, there is some telling detail in dividing our home and away form. We have played a far weaker schedule at home, and yet possess only the 15th best home record in the Premier League. By contrast, away from home we've had a gruelling slog of fixtures and yet have returned the 8th best outcome. This despite picking up more points at home (17) than away (14).

Putting all of those things together seems to explain how deeply unsatisfactory it all feels. We've been mediocre at home, when more fans go to games and more fans get to moan about the loss of the Boleyn. By contrast, away games are obviously seen by fewer supporters and we've still lost half of those games. Welcome to the Premier League - where not many teams win away but where the Bilic counterattacking style is perfectly suited.

I think it would be easier to feel a sense of optimism if we had beaten Man City and lost this game. Swap the win at Palace for a win at Spurs and suddenly the 9th place contains a couple of big scalps, which in turn allows fans to dream a little. The very specific problem that I see right now is that our home games against good teams have been so one sided that there is nothing for us to cling on to. 1-5 v Arsenal, 0-5 vs Man City, 0-3 vs Southampton and 0-4 vs Man City. West Ham away used to be the kind of game that defined title winners, but this year it has come to define whether you are a bottom half team or not.

I think what this season really needs is a big scalp at home, in a game that matters, against a full strength opposition. We need to be convinced that we are able to punch our weight at that level again, and to do so with a bit of brio. Truthfully, what we really need is to be able to play like an away team at home, in the manner that has been suiting us so well on our travels recently. Get a win like that, and suddenly we would be taking steps to turn our new house into a home.

9. Lost Light

Here's an interesting fact - West Ham and Southampton have exactly the same size pitch (105m x 68m). The problem is that the Saints stadium allows fans to sit within a javelin throw of the touchline whereas when the ball goes in the crowd at London Stadium it has to be couriered back.

I don't think our problems at home are arising due to a bigger pitch, but instead because we're not playing very well. Teams come, frustrate us and wait for the inevitable defensive mistake and the crowd exodus. It's been a trustworthy recipe all season and never better exploited than by Man City this week. Smaller pitches like the Boleyn Ground are sometimes easier to play on as it's possible to pen teams in and not let them out, but at the same time with a larger playing area there is the possibility of stretching teams with width and pace.

In fairness, the evidence so far suggests that this is much easier with David Silva and Gabriel Jesus than it is with Gokhan Tore and Simone Zaza, and transitioning is going to take a while.

10. The Wrong Side Of Goodbye

Last time out, I linked to this JustGiving page for Amos Nasha, a former West Ham youth team player who is on the verge of being made homeless. The aim was to raise £1,000 to allow Amos and his younger brother a chance to get back on feet.

At the last time I checked, the fund had risen to over £6,000 and donations had been made by fans, players and the chairman, David Sullivan.

It's easy to write pisstakes of our stadium, our defending and that time Mike Marsh left because he was homesick for Liverpool and then went to Turkey before coming back to Southend. But there are lots of marvellous things about supporting West Ham too and it's nice to be reminded of it.