Swansea 4 - 1 West Ham (And Other Ramblings)

"Sometimes I fantasise, when the streets are cold and lonely 

And the cars they burn below me"

- The Stone Roses, "Made of Stone"

I've spent the last two days in my loft. Shuffling boxes to my garden shed in preparation for a loft conversion, morosely staring into the gloom and pondering a great many things. Predominant amongst them is a question that boomerangs around my consciousness. What, I ask aloud, has happened to my club?

Early entry for that new club crest

I ponder my youth and the first time my dad took me to a game at Upton Park in 1986. Ipswich under the lights. An electric dreamland. We went behind and I nearly started crying. We came back to win and I think I did start crying. We were going to win the league and my football supporting life was going to be spent in the Elysian fields, watching a style of play from another world. You can keep your archangels, for I have seen Alan Devonshire. I pitied my school friends who supported Arsenal. What did they know of life or love? I had seen Valhalla and it was claret and blue. Plus Geoff Pike was there, oddly.

My cousin was with me that night, and now we sit next to each other each week with our own children. A gift passed through the ages from generation to generation, repeated everywhere through the stadium. I often think the gift that football gives us is not the game itself, but the time we get to spend with our loved ones. Our children's experiences don't yet match ours, but they have the great gift of youthful optimism to tide them over. They think their day will come and who am I to deny them such a dream.

I urge you to find your own similar place of quiet repose. If, like me, you had the stuffing knocked out of you this weekend, then it will help you. At a time when our club seems so devoid of an identity and so bereft of hope, I found it helpful to look inward. For you it might be Trevor Brooking or Pop Robson or perhaps Bobby Moore if you're truly lucky. Those names are echoes in the wind to someone of my age. I settled instead on Ian Bishop, Trevor Sinclair and Scott Parker - each of them a marker on my emotional journey supporting West Ham.

All of this, you might think, is a bit melodramatic for a 4-1 loss at Swansea, especially considering that this result was literally not even the worst 4-1 defeat we have suffered at the hands of Swansea in the last three seasons.

But that's not the cause of my malaise. I'm down here in the gutter because I feel like I lost something this weekend. I can take your 4-1 defeat and raise you a 6-0 FA Cup slaughter at Old Trafford, a 3-0 disaster at Notts County that sparked the first sit down anti Board protest, or even a 9-0 aggregate League Cup semi final defeat to Manchester City where I think I saw a football team declare for the first time ever. We all knew the drill when we signed up - if you wanted to win every week, go somewhere else. But this was something different. Something much deeper.

***

"See the lonely boy, out on the weekend, trying to make it pay

Can't relate to joy, he tries to speak, and can't begin to say"

- Neil Young, "Out on the Weekend"

So even as Winston Reid threw himself at a Swansea attack like a walrus falling off a glacier and knocked himself unconscious, and the home side swept into a two nil lead before our makeshift backline had even woken up, nobody was really batting an eyelid. It turns out that David Moyes has achieved the exact same results as Slaven Bilic in their last eighteen matches in charge. Plus ca change, perhaps.

I think that's probably a bit unfair as Moyes has had tougher fixtures, and didn't get the benefit of that soft looking start that Bilic wasted, but it's undeniable that any gains are being measured in inches and not in miles. I think we look better organised, fitter and more structured under the Scot, but here we are, deep in a relegation battle with a squad that isn't remotely fit for the task. Like I said, now might be a good time to close your eyes and think of Metz.

After the Reid injury, Moyes probably should have found a way to get Antonio on to the pitch given our very obvious lack of pace, but instead brought on Sam Byram and shifted Zabaleta infield, and somehow now we were playing five defenders and the only one who was a natural central half isn't old enough to drink on the end of season beano to Vegas. West Ham, baby - next level. 

I used to be quite enamoured of Swansea, as I felt that they were at least a side with a distinctive pattern of play that made them entertaining for neutrals. Now, rather like us, they are in that indistinguishable pot of lower half teams who look alright when they win and very Mrs Brown's Boys when they lose. Here, they battered us by pressing with energy and drive and taking their chances, which mostly arose as a result of comedic West Ham defending. They are in the ascendancy while we are hurtling down like a lead lined corpse in a river.

After a rousing half time team talk from Moyes, the team emerged as if in that upside down dream sequence from Inception, and immediately conceded a third when Adrian palmed a corner directly into Javier Hernandez's face, and watched as it dropped perfectly for Andy King to score against us. That was King's fifth goal in seven games against us. Imagine Andy King being your nemesis. Close your eyes. Payet. Old Trafford. Breathe.

That half time team talk

After that, everyone went to sleep and Cheik Kouyate fouled Andre Ayew to concede a penalty, before Antonio popped up with a late consolation. Prior to this, Marko Arnautovic should have opened our account when put through by Manuel Lanzini but took far too long and eventually dithered for so long that even Theresa May started mocking him. I wonder if Jordan Hugill should be introduced? What of £39 million pound man and European Champion, Joao Mario? And then I wonder if the passengers on the Titanic thought umbrellas would save them.

And thus the team wandered off, humiliated and having repaid absolutely nothing of the efforts shown by the travelling fans to make the trip through the springtime snow. I think we'll escape relegation because I think Moyes has the nous to navigate his way through the icebergs, but then again I once thought Paul Jewell would make a good West Ham manager. You can't trust me.

As you left Wales, I hope some of you were able to gaze fondly towards Cardiff and dream a little dream of Bobby Zamora in the hazy sunlight of a Play Off final. You deserved it.

***

"Outside, I'm masquerading

Inside, my hope is fading"

- Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, "Tracks of My Tears"

But as I sit here now, writing and rewriting this piece, I can't shake the nagging feeling that is eating away at me. What happened on the pitch on Saturday was shambolic, but it was just football.

What happened off the pitch disturbed me far more.

Most of you will be aware that a variety of fans groups had banded together under the moniker of West Ham Groups United with a view to engaging the club on a variety of points. The lead focus of this was the Real West Ham Fans (RWHF), an organisation put together at staggeringly short notice just before Christmas, with a large Facebook following and an ability to organise numbers in a way that I don't recall seeing before at West Ham. The lead men were former ICF faces, but were at pains to distance themselves from that era.

Other groups joined them - KUMB, WHUISA, Hammers Chat among them - and before long they had an audience with Karren Brady. I thought the demands that were made of the club were curiously low level, but accepted that a stratagem of starting slowly and building was more likely to succeed than simply demanding the owners sell up.

Before long, that wasn't moving swiftly enough and RWHF announced a march. Again, I thought that was strange as it seemed to be an over the top response, but again indicative of the pressure cooker atmosphere among fans, as the team stumbled along with a typically enormous injury list and an even more typically useless January transfer window.

So, with me being in the very small minority who didn't fancy a march, huge numbers were mobilised for a protest on 10th March. Whatever I might have thought of the tactics I couldn't argue with the effectiveness of it all. Kids, women, disabled fans and all comers were welcome. I might not have been flying the plane, but it didn't mean I wasn't keen on the destination.

And then, talks proceeded and suddenly, RWHF cancelled the march. Leaving aside what impact that might have on future attempts to galvanise West Ham fans into public action, it left a gaping hole. Fans wanted to march, and the concessions seemingly drawn from Karren Brady didn't seem to amount to much more than asking the landlord we routinely sue to uphold his agreement with us for a few favours. It was, in short, baffling.

Now, I wasn't in the meetings and have only read the same notes as all of you. Who knows what really happened but one point to note is that the Club will be making a contribution to the fund for cancer patient, Isla Caton, a cause dear to the West Ham heart and something that surely transcends club badges and retractable seating and half time beer queues. Before you quibble about that, and the ethical element of the club making that offer is highly fucking questionable, it's probably worth asking how easy it would be to look her family in the eye and tell them you turned down that money.

But that doesn't excuse what happened next.

Fans still wanted to march, and as the group with the best links to the council, Football Supporters Federation and the Police, WHUISA stepped into the breach. The feeling was that the march would still happen, with the RWHF group stepping aside to pursue their apparent links to the Board, and others putting forth their objections on the streets.

And then, on Saturday night the RWHF Facebook page went fully hallucinogenic. It was announced that the group was now under the control of the ICF, and that anybody marching would be met with violence. Suddenly, the march was apparently under the control of Antifa activists and would now be political in nature, and would thus be forcibly stopped from entering Stratford. This was news to the thousands of West Ham fans still planning to march, but in this instance the lie was twice around the world before the truth even knew there was a race to be run.

Leaving aside for a moment the concept of Antifa being used in a pejorative sense, the entire episode was odd because it amounted to the organisers of a march threatening anyone who then wanted to go on it. Eventually, today, it was cancelled on the grounds of safety. Go find your happy place. Brooking. Wembley. A white Admiral kit.

More sinisterly, the chair of WHUISA, a guy called Mark Walker, was being described as a political activist with links to Sadiq Khan. The evidence for this seems to have amounted to Walker once working for the Labour Party and having the temerity to vote for Khan in the Mayoral election.

Unable to process any of what was happening, and finding myself distressed like the liberal snowflake I am by the sight of West Ham fans being threatened by West Ham fans, I decided to ask around. First up I messaged Walker and asked about the notion that he was a lefty activist. He explained that after the meetings with Brady he had taken her public comments and fact checked them with the landlord. I'm pretty sure that sounds like the kind of thing an Independent Supporters Association is supposed to do. When you're in a negotiation you don't take the word of the other party at face value. You robustly check it. Other people have told me that Brady isn't especially happy that WHUISA have been doing this. Good.

I also asked Walker how he was. He replied that he had been physically threatened and wasn't sleeping. An away season ticket holder, he doesn't think he'll ever attend another game. Just process that for a moment.

I understand the allure of the RWHF group and I can see the progress they have made. But this is reprehensible. I can't in good conscience support it and I don't know how anyone else can. If our fan representatives are just going to threaten us when public opinion moves in a different direction to their own then I struggle to see how that is representation. I was told I could take my daughters on that march, and then suddenly we were at risk if we were marching with WHUISA. Well, I would have been under their banner, and that is terrifying. And suddenly that thought boomerangs back again, and no FA Cup win over Everton or three goal Wembley comeback at Spurs can shake it from my mind. What has happened to my club?

When you next make that little list of West Ham heroes, you should probably add Mark Walker to it.

***

"Shake your fist at him, tell him it's alright

Say it's alright"

- The Flying Burrito Brothers, "Down in the Churchyard"

As a kid, one of the single most thrilling sporting events I can remember watching was the World Athletics 4x400m relay in Tokyo.

Watch this. You will stand a little taller in your shoes (if you're British).

But what was especially thrilling to the twelve year old me, was that the hero of the British team - Kriss Akabussi - was a West Ham fan. And there it was. That indelible connection. An invisible rope between us. That feeling that if ever we were to meet I would be able to look at him and he at me and we would have a shared bond that only a few could understand. And in the end, isn't that what football is supposed to give you? An entrance to an exclusive club that only the privileged few get to see? When I say Oldham, Valentines Day - you all know what that means. It's a link forged without us even knowing.

I think of the friends that West Ham and this blog have made for me. The Princeton graduate, the soldiers, the writers, the taxi drivers, the comedians, the accountants, the ones who have jobs with consultant in them that I don't really understand. And above it all. Claret and blue. West Ham.

I've never met Mark Walker and yet when I hear about a West Ham fan being threatened by others it runs completely contrary to all of that. It doesn't just break a code, it smashes it. I was never in thrall to the ICF as a kid because I was too young for it, but I understand why others are. There is a mythology to that time, and when there seems to be so little of our club left, I get why people look backwards. Hell, I suggested it myself at the top of this article.

But this can't happen. Marches can't be cancelled because of threats of violence. I once climbed a huge hill in the Marlborough Sounds in New Zealand and got to the top to find the only other human being within a five mile radius was a West Ham fan from Manor Park. I don't want to have to wonder if he is with "us" or "them". I just want to nod and say "Joey Beauchamp, eh?" and leave it at that.

I doubt that the Tory commentator Iain Dale and I will ever agree on anything politically but I respect his love for the club, respect his opinions and would be proud to stand next to him at a game. His politics don't matter to me, and I doubt mine do to him, when we're both stood at the ground wondering exactly how Liverpool managed to score from our corner.

I want West Ham to be the most inclusive club in the country. I want to see more women in the ground, more ethnic minorities to better reflect our natural catchment area, I want to be the most welcoming place for those in the LGBT community and above all a safe place to watch football for anyone. And I don't give a shit if that makes me that liberal snowflake again.

As someone who supported the move I've done a lot of soul searching over the last couple of months and I can't help but feel that I failed West Ham by not doing a better job of interrogating the specifics of the new stadium. Not that my opinion carries any weight but more in the sense that each of us should now be asking ourselves that question. I still believe that moving could and should have been the springboard to a new era but it is becoming increasingly clear that moving under these owners and to this stadium has damaged the club, possibly irrevocably.

As I look down at the club crest on my shirt I keep returning to a single thought - "I didn't do enough". It's not a great feeling to say out loud that you have failed, but there is no doubt that I have. I certainly failed to heed those who didn't want to move. I believed them to be dinosaurs unable to see obvious progress when it stared them in the face. To you, I apologise.

I believed the hype, believed that modernity and progress were more important than tradition, and could not possibly be mismanaged, and for that we have paid the highest possible price. While West Ham is run as it currently is, the soulless husk of a football club that is currently traipsing around the country will be our weekly reminder of that solipsism. I can't speak for any of you, but I should have done better by this football club I have loved my entire life.

And that is the great danger of all this. Something changed for me on Saturday. I'm not sure I will ever view my club in the same way again. The owners might be delighted that the march is off, and the divide and conquer approach has worked, but there is a cost to all of these things. While they remain, I will view West Ham like a lost love. After all, this isn't the club I fell for all those years ago.

I'm devastated tonight.

Julian Dicks. Forest away. The free kick into the top corner. Pandemonium.

What the hell has happened to my club?

***

Oh yeah, and if you agree with any of that, then you too should join WHUISA today. Sometimes it's not enough to just nod your head and murmur agreement. They need your numbers so that they can keep holding the club to account. Help them.

West Ham 1 - 0 Swansea (And Other Ramblings)

One of my favourite time waster websites is Awkward Family Photos which pretty much does what it says on the tin. I believe this to be the masterpiece of the oeuvre:

Hernandez, Carroll, Lanzini and Antonioooooooo

I urge you to really focus on this picture because it is absolutely the best thing to emerge from this game. There is quite a lot going on.

It is also a rather magnificently apt pictorial representation of the problem that Slaven Bilic is currently encountering. No matter what he does to try and make this team slot together, any movement in one area seems to cause a disaster somewhere else. His early season ambitions of squeezing all his attackers in and letting the cards fall where they may has backfired spectacularly as our defence proved as porous as a paper umbrella. He then shifted the other way by focusing on that back line, with some success, but this meant that suddenly our attack - a red headed toddler if ever I saw one - was face down on a beach. I have some sympathy with his predicament, although it is primarily of his own making.

***

I have been much concerned lately with the concept of listening and what happens when people stop hearing what you have to say. This has been partially triggered by the number of people taking the time to tell me they no longer read The H List, apparently due to the lack of positivity, but also because that very point feels inextricably linked to the fact that Slaven Bilic no longer seems to be getting through to his players.

On the first point - c'est la vie. There are plenty of places you can go for people to tell you how well things are going at West Ham. That's their prerogative of course, because none of us watch games of football for xG or shot locations but because we want to dream, experience joy and lose ourselves, however briefly, in the endless Elysian fields of possibility.

I understand that and it's why I don't look down my nose at the "Three positive things to come of our 4-0 defeat to Manchester United!" articles. But at the same time, that's not me. I reckon I am perfectly capable of getting excited but I'd argue that this last eighteen months has been enough to test the resolve of all but the most optimistic Hammer. I don't watch games solely for the electric rush of immediate gratification that follows a win. I enjoy that, of course, but I want the feeling of momentum and the all encompassing notion that we are being swept along as part of a bigger overall strategy. For the first time since the late Nineties, I felt that way in 2015/16. It's been a sobering feeling to have fallen off that wave quite so spectacularly.

None of which, by the way, is to ask for praise or comment or anything else. If I am entitled to write these columns then people are equally entitled to dislike them. That's pretty much how it's supposed to work and if you write things on the internet then you'd better have a thick enough skin to cope with the resulting scrutiny. It's a shame to lose readers, but if that's the price of doing business then that's how it will have to be.

I also know how many people read The H List and it's quite significantly less than a number of other West Ham sites. In the end, people vote with their (cyber) feet.

But as I pondered all of this last week, it did occur to me that, in the same way that I'm running out of synonyms for "inept", and struggling to find new ways to say the same thing, maybe Slaven Bilic is similarly reaching for fresh inspiration to convince his team to rouse themselves from the footballing doldrums.

A kiss before dying?

***

I never had much doubt that West Ham would win this game, although my confidence began seriously wavering around the hour mark when Andy Carroll seemed to be briefly playing in midfield,  Chicharito was on his mobile firing his agent and the crowd had taken on the friendly, jovial tone that one traditionally associates with the Colosseum. In fact I even predicted a shitty 1-0 win on an appearance with the chaps from Hammers Chat, during the week. 

This was yet another of those typical Bilic games, so synonymous with his reign that he is almost becoming defined by them. A high pressure match that he apparently has to win, even though it's early in the season, the board pretty clearly don't want to fire him and Crystal Palace exist. So it was on to this familiar terrain that we all clambered and the teams didn't disappoint. 

This might be the single worst game of football I've ever seen, although in fairness this will take some beating. My criteria here is that both teams must be fairly - oh fuck it - inept and in that vein I have to rule out all those 7-1 away defeats because you'd have to accept that the opposition in those games were probably pretty decent. 

No, for a truly awful game you need both teams to be conjoined in futility and apparently bereft of inspiration. And, well, here you go: 

Say what you will about Bilic, but he seems to know how to win these sorts of game. By my record he has faced these win or die games against Palace (a), Hull (h), Burnley (h), Swansea (h - twice) and Huddersfield (h) and won them all without conceding a single goal in the process. I'm not sure what I think about this, but at some point we might have to acknowledge that there is a certain skill to this. Of course, a better skill would be to not need to win them in the first place, but we're a bit past that now. 

As per this shot map from Caley Graphics the first thing to acknowledge here is that Swansea were absolutely woeful. Not a single shot from inside the box, and all the attacking threat of the Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, who got all the way to Earth and immediately crashed. This, by the way, was considered perfectly acceptable because they were all incompetent and the Golgafrinchans just wanted to get rid of them. 

For as disjointed and frustratingly patchwork as our play was, you can't compare it to Swansea. And it should be pointed out they looked a hell of a lot more dangerous playing away at Spurs than they did here. Actually, now really I think about it, they were fucking useless here. 

Our back four were impressive and, whilst it's easy to dismiss the weak opposition, both Abraham and Bony are reasonable strikers. However, they were easily contained by Reid and Fonte, whilst Pablo Zabaleta contains to render my pre season warnings about his fitness as foolish. He was outstanding here, and whilst Aaron Cresswell still came in for plenty of stick it seems pretty likely that he was simply ordered by Bilic to hold his position in order to keep the shape of the flat back four. 

The febrile atmosphere in the stadium didn't help. Cresswell and Fonte both fell victim to the boo boys as they were forced back by aggressive Swansea pressing - the only thing the visitors did well all afternoon - and the atmosphere generally teetered on the edge of full rebellion all afternoon. For a team playing with their confidence in their boots, it was a difficult day on which to perform. 

***

So, what was happening further up the field?

Well, Bilic employed the 4-4-2 formation that had briefly served him well in the closing stages of the Spurs match. That was against ten men, and a team already 3-0 up, but he saw enough to convince himself that it could work here.

And then he deployed Michail Antonio and Andre Ayew as the wide players. 

It will smack of 20/20 hindsight but I am amazed that Bilic thought this could ever work. Neither Antonio or Ayew do enough defensive work for that position, and neither does Marko Arnautovic for that matter, who was due to play there until eating some Spurs lasagne and coming down with a sickness bug before the game. 

Thus it came to pass that Ayew was chucked on with limited preparation time, and played out of position once again. If the definition of a manager is to put his or her employees into the best possible position to perform their job, then Bilic is failing at this. 

There is no doubt that this was a formation tried to try and extract the best from Andy Carroll and Chicharito, but given their strengths it was a regression all the way back to the previous century. When English football evolved away from the 4-4-2 obsession it was by virtue of, typically foreign, second strikers who dropped in between the lines of attack and midfield and became link players in a 4-4-1-1 system. Think Bergkamp and Zola. 

This wasn't what we were trying to do here. 

Instead we were trying to replicate the Kevin Phillips/Niall Quinn partnership that worked so well for Sunderland, and which involved the second, smaller striker running on to flick ons and link play from his bigger partner. And to start with, I thought Carroll did his part fairly well. He put himself about in the fashion of a rhino in a soft play area and generally reminded Swansea why he tends to always score against them. 

Big Andy 

But we weren't doing the things one would expect to make that system work. No long diagonal balls from full backs for Carroll to flick on or knock down, and no drives to the byeline from which the wide players could deliver crosses into the box.

Instead, I don't really know what was going on. The players are low on confidence and playing their third different starting system, just seven matches into the season. We could argue that teams should be able to flick back and forth, but there seems little doubt that they were uncomfortable in this formation and the output was dire. Everywhere you looked someone was having a stinker. Cheikhou Kouyate looked like he had been dragged out of the crowd by a hypnotist and told he was a Premier League midfielder, and Mark Noble just continues to fade from view like the vapour trail of a vanishing jet. 

Shockingly, a tactical plan stolen from Sunderland wasn't working. 

A decent chunk of this can be explained away. To my mind the best wide players in a 4-4-2 would be Byram and Masuaku, who can do enough defensively to justify letting the full backs push up a bit and would lend some nice solidity when the opposition have the ball. The issue is that with Kouyate and Noble inside them, there is a serious lack of creativity there. 

As it was, our attacks unfolded like a slow time lapse photograph - you had to keep staring at it to figure out if the bloody thing was moving at all. And then, on came Masuaku, who ran at the Swansea defence and didn't manage much until he did, and one beautiful sweeping cross bypassed everyone and found the lurking Diafra Sakho at the back post. 1-0, 91 minutes, redemption. Just like that, we're off to a better start than last season. 

For a manager much maligned for his substitutes, they sure do seem to paying some dividends lately. 

***

That feeling of rebellion in the crowd was there all day, and seemed to have been festering for a week, perhaps as a result of the post Spurs autopsies that split the fanbase. After half an hour of this game, it was evident that the system was not working. I would argue that modern managers are far too slow to make changes in such situations, and that if ever a team should have been changed quickly it was this one. Swansea were matching us in formation and the rows of four were making it impossible for anyone to pass to each other, apparently.

Yet, despite the game crying out for something different, it was allowed to rumble on. Taking players off after half an hour isn't a recipe for a happy squad but this might have been an exceptional case. The problem was compounded by the fact that Antonio looked like he was carrying an injury for most of the day, highlighting once more the folly of asking players to play when half fit.  

The problem I see with Bilic is that he gives off the very strong impression of picking his eleven players first and then trying to choose a formation to shoehorn them into. As such, Carroll and Chicharito were going to play no matter what, and thus he stumbled upon 4-4-2 as the least worst option available. One wonders if this might be the decision which finally loses him the crowd.

Read some of the articles about Bilic, and ask around a bit and a familiar theme emerges, however. The players like him and continue to play for him but are baffled by the tactics. They also sympathise with the pressure that comes of working for the Kim Jong Sullivan family, and don't appreciate the continued interventions from Pyongyang-on-Thames. 

But be that as it may, the word is that anyone going in search of concrete instructions from the coaching staff is generally met with platitudes or motivational speeches and, well, none of that is hard to believe watching the team play. 

But, I suppose we can't ignore the facts. This was a third clean sheet in four games and Bilic's substitutes have contributed two goals and three assists in that span. The crescendo of boos that greeted Chicharito's replacement was remarkable given how little impact the Mexican had in the game. We can argue over whose fault that is, but he wasn't doing anything and I didn't really disagree. I thought it more important to try and get Sakho and Masuaku on than pandering to a crowd who were already in a fickle mood, and felt it should have happened far earlier. 

Carroll subsequently showed his worth by hitting the crossbar in the latter stages with a lovely improvised flick, and whilst I wouldn't be starting him so unquestioningly as Bilic seems to, I also wouldn't boo him for being chosen as a sponsors Man of the Match. 

That incident capped a remarkable afternoon as some poor bastard in a box somewhere chose to give Carroll a bottle of Moet so he could get a picture with him and a quick chat and somehow managed to generate a tidal wave of boos for one of our own players. I'm all for supporting your team in whatever way you want, but figuring out that Man of the Match awards are meaningless might be a good fucking start.

This is not important

***

But all of this shouldn't detract from how insipid and soul destroying this afternoon was. I know there were injuries, I know Lanzini and Obiang are coming back, I know the opposition were terrible, I know the confidence was low, I know we're grinding out points and I know that Bilic is a nice guy who carries himself with dignity and class. Those things all matters but I'm not sure they matter as much as the fact that we are going absolutely nowhere. 

I don't know how anyone could watch this latest victory plucked from the jaws of mediocrity and see anything resembling a plan. Sure, the substitution of Masuaku has been influential for two games running, but anyone who thinks that he would be putting in those touchline crosses in the ninetieth minute of games while playing at left back hasn't been paying attention. He has been able to do that because the presence of Cresswell behind him, and the situation of the game has allowed him to advance that far upfield. 

Hands up anyone fancying another crack at 4-4-2 next week at Burnley? Keep them up if you fancy that Arnautovic is the answer to the disjointedness? And keep 'em there if you can see an easy way to slot Manuel Lanzini into this team? And keep them up still if you believe Bilic has a clear understanding of how he's going to make all of that work tactically?

Now let me see who's still got their hand up. Ah - how nice to see you, Mrs Bilic. 

I retain a healthy admiration for Bilic because I think he has to work with intolerable interference from our owners, but at some point we have to ask why we are permanently drifting instead of heading toward some sort of identifiable end point. I think a lot of that comes back to a question I have been asking of him for a while now - what sort of team does Slaven Bilic's West Ham look like?

If we are a fast counter attacking team, then Carroll cannot play and arguably Chicharito might also be a bit of a luxury if we can't find a way to get him on the ball in the box. Alternatively, if Bilic wants a physical, direct team that plays off a big striker, then he should just pick one and find a way to make it work. 

The problem with the current bastardised hybrid is that it is neither. We can't play quickly because hardly anyone in the team has any pace, and we don't play long ball because it's not really how any of them want to play. So we drift along in the middle, and it's good enough to beat teams like Swansea and Huddersfield and it's not even close to good enough for teams like Manchester United or Spurs. 

Perhaps the saving grace here might be Lanzini, who returned on Saturday and did more in his brief cameo than any of the four midfielders who started the game did all day. If our season truly does hinge around the fitness of a solitary player, however, then it might be time to stock up on sleeping bags because it's going to be a long winter. 

Have you tried telling them to be more passionate?

***

One interesting piece of news from last week was that Reece Oxford has come back from his baffling loan to Borussia Mönchengladbach, a team better than the one he was leaving. I remain convinced that the club are approaching loans wrongly, with barely any attention being paid to exactly what benefit the youngsters are going to derive from them. 

What is perhaps timely is that West Ham have a gaping hole at the defensive midfield position currently. Noble is out of sorts and Pedro Obiang is currently demonstrating the recovery powers of a leper and William Carvalho is in Portugal and that doesn't leave much else. Perhaps I'm a fool, but that brief wondrous glimpse of Oxford two years ago continues to eat away at me. It's more than Declan Rice has ever shown, although he now seems to be favoured. Perhaps those rumours that Oxford is too big for his boots are true, but to see that type of talent and then watch it shrivel would be a painful cross to bear. 

***

We had the relatively interesting development late last week when a new owner joined up with the Kim Jongs and the Golds. American asset manager Albert "Tripp" Smith purchased the balancing 10% stake previously held by Straumar dating back to the rip-roaringly successful Icelandic takeover. 

Smith is a billionaire, courtesy of selling his company GSO Capital Partners to the Blackstone Company in 2008. This makes sense, because you'd really have to be billionaire to call yourself Tripp and not have everyone laugh at you. 

I don't really have much idea of why he's done this beyond the fact that men in his line of work don't typically make investments for sentimental reasons. He must see some value, either in the form of a future sale or an increase in expected revenue streams, which would both be welcome developments. 

One additional point to mention is that the club will doubtless be hugely more valuable now than when Gold and Sullivan purchased their shares in 2010. The amount that Tripp has paid for his shares probably won't be a million miles away from the individual investments made by the owners back then. In case you're wondering why anyone would ever invest in Premier League football clubs. 

If he brings only one thing to the club, then I would welcome some of the dead eyed professionalism that characterises people in his industry. It might be a laugh when our owners shoot their mouths off and get called The Dildo Brothers, but it all hurts our wider standing within the game. I wonder if 10% buys him the right to pull the reins on the Sullivan horses at any time?

West Ham 1 - 0 Swansea (And Other Ramblings)

Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream

I have very few good memories of watching football games played in the sunshine. England, of course, play their games of import in the summer and England, of course, disappoint us all in the summer. I'm fairly confident that won't change after Brexit.

But I rather like my football in the dark of winter, with the night closing in and a thin layer of rain making the surface nice and slick. On this, at least, I can agree with Nick Hornby. Bright sunshine just seems to highlight our deficiencies, and usually signifies the end of the season where we are either floundering in our pursuit of success (last year) or staring disaster in the face (every other year).

So I watch this game like I'm watching a dream. I'm so far back and so far up it's like I'm in the clouds anyway. Up here I feel like I'm watching Inception. A dream within a dream. West Ham have barely any decent players - I must be dreaming. Each minute on the pitch lasts an hour in the stands. It's that sort of day.

Far below me, I wonder if Michael Caine is here, or maybe Tom Hardy is riding around on a snow mobile for no discernible reason. Maybe they are attempting to plant the germ of an idea in David Sullivan's psyche. "Let someone else buy the players, David". Christ, I hope so.

It's as near as anybody will get to being entertained on this particular day, when nervousness has settled over the stadium like a blanket being thrown high up over a child's bed and then fluttering down onto the toys below. Hello tension, my old friend.

But days like today aren't about anything other than the result. Pretty football and confident finishing are for those other London teams. We're here for the sweet embrace of mid table mediocrity, and the giddy promise of ninety million more of those television pounds to make it all better. I couldn't care less how we play today, so long as we prevail. It is a day for winning.

Bridge Over Troubled Water

We start nervously, but so do Swansea. The visitors press us high up the pitch and we don't have the wit to cope with it. Our most frequent early pass combination is Randolph smashing it long to Antonio, which eventually ends up with the latter injuring his hamstring. He did this originally in the Leicester game and was expected to miss six weeks. Instead he came back in a fortnight and failed to complete either game he started. It's the West Ham Way.

Most of the early exchanges are tepid, although Swansea break dangerously a couple of times before remembering they are Swansea and wasting the opportunities. Up the other end, it's our biggest home game in years so naturally none of our strikers are fit. In their stead we play wingers as forwards and pray. You'd think someone might pay the price for such incompetence, but you know deep down they won't. That's also The West Ham Way.

When Antonio gets injured Bilic turns around and eventually his gaze rests upon Jonathan Calleri. The young Argentine runs on with the confidence and derring do of a man walking the plank. The guy next to me yells "Come on Julian, score a goal". It's that kind of a day too.

We are playing like a team on a first date, filled with trepidation. Robert Snodgrass was a curious signing, but at least I thought he'd have an immediate impact. Instead he has no confidence at all, visibly wilting as the catcalls inevitably start raining down. It's The West Ham W...urgh, you know what I mean.

I glance at the bench, wondering if reinforcements are likely. Carroll and Sakho can't be trusted to play for an hour so it seems safe to rule them out. Elsewhere my eye falls to Sofiane Feghouli - he of the incriminating photographs - and I am not reassured. I have never seen a footballer do so many things right, whilst simultaneously managing to get them all wrong.

Better stick with the lads on the pitch then.

The Sun Is Burning

The early exchanges aren't worth writing about. Snodgrass nearly scores with a back post header, but Fabianski stops it right on the line. It's as near as we get to cohesive attacking, but in truth we look alright at the other end too. It doesn't hurt that there is more likelihood of an actual swan swimming up the nearby canal and sticking in a shot at goal than any of the ones on the pitch.

The Swansea team look bereft, as though their very essence was ripped out and forever destroyed by the midweek collapse against Spurs. God bless our nearby cousins - we should send them some flowers or, better yet, some lasagna, when they come to visit in a few weeks.

Mark Noble is everywhere. It's his four hundredth appearance for West Ham, which is a lot of futility for one so young. But his badge somehow looks bigger than the others and the shoulders a little broader, for Noble never shirks anything. It's easy to roll your eyes at the "West Ham through and through" stuff, but in the end it's true. The man isn't going to let the occasion pass him by like so many of his team mates are. He still spends too much time going sideways, but just before half time he finally straightens up. At last a little jink, and suddenly the door is ajar. Snodgrass plays it short to Cheikhou Kouyate and I'm finally roused to edge forward in my seat.

The Senegalese is a giant of a man, who runs first and asks questions later. Today he is perpetual motion, and right now he's flying. Swansea help out a lot by continuing to defend like they are unfamiliar with the concept. Would be tacklers split like the Red Arrows and his shot is unerring and tremendous and right in the corner and stick that up your fucking Championship.

As the ball arches into the bottom corner there is a release like no other. Finally we can all breathe out - finally we have something to cling to. At half time people in the concourses are smiling. It's an odd, unfamiliar sensation, like when they play a decent song on Capital FM.

Keep The Customer Satisfied

Our defence will need to improve next year if we're to have any hope of avoiding another season of despair like this one. Reece Oxford seems like he might be the man for that particular job, so at half time I check how he's doing on his loan spell at Reading. They are 6-1 down at Norwich so that's all going swimmingly. I reckon he might think he's dreaming too.

Who knows what was said here at the interval, but I'm guessing it was something along the lines of "Don't concede to this lot - they're appalling". The visitors change things themselves, abandoning the neat, ineffectual passing of Tom Carroll and instead opting to smash it long to Fernando Llorente. I don't blame them - nothing else has worked.

The thing is, we carry James Collins around especially for days like this. He's our air raid shelter - useful when you come under aerial bombardment and not quite what you need the rest of the time. He and Jose Fonte are doing yeoman work. Even though Swansea press forward desperately, they just look hopeless. Our fullbacks aren't venturing upfield very much, and we look almost solid as a result. Arthur Masuaku is prone to dive in a little, but he has an odd serenity to his play that marks him out as a man to watch. I come away impressed, if jittery.

On the other side Sam Byram is coming of age. He is outstanding, and even earns himself a team wide high five when he successfully snuffs out a last minute Gylfi Sigurdsson foray into the box. It's possibly the first time any of his team mates have seen any honest to goodness right backing all year long. He will later leave the ground on crutches, because West Ham.

As the minutes slip by, I find the knot in my stomach growing ever so slightly. I can't see how Swansea are going to score, which probably means they are going to do it any minute. They eventually conjure up a shot, from Luciano Narsingh, which Darren Randolph appears to tip over the bar, and the referee awards a goal kick. I almost wish we could let them have the corner so we can save up that luck for when we might actually need it.

The visitors manage only four efforts at goal all day. They have an xG lower than their mascots. It is a risible performance and I could not care less.

El Condor Pasa (If I Could)

Up the other end we are looking threatening, but the chances keep falling to the players least capable of taking them - Byram, Calleri and Ayew. Two of them are our strikers. I hope you'll join me in a moments silence for this dead, decaying fucking season. I wish I could set it on fire and shove it off down the river on a Viking longboat.

The sun has arched across the sky now and is slowly being impaled on the Canary Wharf skyscrapers, so the shadows are lengthening. Bilic is bent over on the half way line but then he always does that so it's hard to know if he's nervous or not. He gets a word in his ear from the fourth official for venturing outside of his technical area, which is remarkable as it has a bigger square footage than my house.

On comes Feghouli for the disappointed and disappointing Snodgrass. The Algerian actually does some pretty good things, generally immediately followed by something equally less good. I think there is probably a decent player buried inside him somewhere like a Russian doll. Who knows whether he'll stick around long enough to emerge at West Ham, where the only constant is change.

I'm reminded of that opening day win at Arsenal again. Of the eleven who started, only two appear today - Noble and Kouyate. We have been ravaged by injury and poor decision making, but I wish they'd keep some players together for a while and try and build a team. Not these particular players though, mind you. Good ones.

Ayew draws two good saves from Fabianski and Calleri shoots wide after some ludicrous skill from Manuel Lanzini. The diminutive playmaker is central to anything good we intend to do in the future. They should try and build a team around him as the people of Pompeii built their city around Mount Vesuvius. I was ill the week they told us at school what happened there, but I'm sure it was all fine.

On comes Edmilson Fernandes for the last few minutes to shore up the middle. He runs around promisingly, and reminds me that the one area where I think West Ham have done well is to invest in young players. Fernandez, Martinez, Quina, Fletcher, Holland - they are doing a good job at trying to replace the players who should be arriving through our Academy.

Elsewhere Darren Randolph gets booked for time wasting, which renders me speechless having seen Ben Foster in action earlier this season. It doesn't matter. The whistle blows and the low thrum of the crowd becomes a crescendo. Bilic falls to his knees like he's in that old Take That video, and Paul Clement wonders where his team have disappeared to exactly.

El Condor Pasa, Paul - I'd rather be a Hammer than a nail.

James Collins clenches his fist and goes into the crowd to give a child his shirt. Great stuff. It's the action that launches a thousand tweets - almost all of them containing the word "passion". Give me strength.

The Dangling Conversation

I am not sure where all of this leaves Slaven Bilic. I have lost faith in the manager, but I can't find it within me to dislike the man. Seemingly, neither can anyone else, as his name rings round the bowl as the match draws to a close.

I am pleased for him, but worried for the future. There has been nothing in this performance today to suggest that a corner has been turned. We look pretty much just like we have for weeks, but now we have the benefit of playing a team who are somehow worse than us.

Swansea finish the game with Alfie Mawson up front. He sounds like he should have played in this fixture 70 years ago, when we would have won 8-2 and then inexplicably played the reverse fixture two days later and lost 6-1. In the end, Mawson doesn't have any joy either, as he bumps up against the Great Wall of Ginger that we've strung across the back.

To my right sit the Directors, who have to be ashen with fear. Defeat today is unthinkable, but in some ways a victory isn't much better, as it serves only only to highlight the paucity of our success. I feel almost ashamed as I punch the air at the full time whistle. It's Swansea at home in April, and somehow this is game is HUGE. What a fucking shitshow.

I am shocked at the disintegration of our team. Like an elderly relative with an illness, they have declined in front of my eyes and I have barely noticed. How did it ever get to this, where we are relying on Calleri and Ayew to get on the end of chances created by Snodgrass and Feghouli? It's easy to castigate Bilic for the lack of organisation and all those disjointed performances, but what a nonsensical level of turnover he has had to deal with. Plenty of it has been self inflicted, but still it makes his job all the harder.

I believe Gold and Sullivan when they say they don't want to fire Bilic, but they are still marked by their inertia of 2011. Then, they should have jettisoned Avram Grant, but failed to successfully line up a replacement and instead soldiered on until it was too late. Relegation should have been avoided now, but the larger question remains - does Bilic have it in him to get challenge for the Top Four? It feels like a ludicrous way to frame the issue, but Leicester and the new stadium changed the scene. As I watch our front three play here, I am moved to ask the question "Do they all have their laces tied together?" . Champions League football doesn't immediately spring to mind.

The Sound Of Silence

The stadium is a weird place again. The teams emerge to a wall of noise that dissipates quickly in the spring heat. It's a lot of effort to keep optimistic and chant all day, and even the Swansea fans don't manage, unusually for an away following.

I am struck by how few of our players have their own songs nowadays. Antonio gets a couple of rounds, so too Lanzini and then it's back to singing about our goalkeeper from the 1990's. Someone in the West Ham choir sure does like the "Ludo Miklosko/I come from near Moscow" line.

That's mainly it from what I can hear, until a late first half round of "Stand Up If You Love West Ham". This makes sense as buying tickets and attending games isn't enough. You must stand to truly prove your allegiance.

Otherwise it's just a low, nervous hum that reverberates around like a fourth afternoon Test match crowd. People will talk later about the atmosphere, but I'm not really feeling it where I am. Most people sit gnawing their fingernails to the bone, wondering why the clock seems to be frozen. By the time Ayew fails to bury his late chance I've gone past the fingernails and I've chewed off most of my lower arm.

Only when the end is in sight does the noise begin to increase. A small pocket behind me even start chanting about the Spurs game, because some people just want to watch the world burn .

On days like today it’s hard not to pine for the Boleyn. I’m over that particular separation, and I’m certainly done with seeing stage by stage pictures of the old place coming down, but – to paraphrase ol’ Shakey – when she danced, I could really love. Spurs and Ipswich were among those who visibly and memorably wilted when confronted by her charms, but it's hard to imagine that here. But by the same token, just as songs could gather momentum as they rushed around the ground, so too could the negativity. That doesn’t seem to happen in the new place. By and large, the crowd stay with the team today, even allowing for the frustratingly short half lives of most of our attacking moves.

Maybe the crowd will save Bilic, as the Board don’t like being unpopular and firing him would certainly go down poorly with most. I used to think the West Ham crowd was one of the more knowledgeable around, but now I’m not so sure. It feels like we must be fairly easy to dupe if 54 games and fucking off to Everton can make you a cult hero. Paolo di Canio would have a job for life, although we might find ourselves without a manager on some of those trips to the icy far North.

Perhaps it’s me who knows nothing of football. I don’t care about passion, or the perception of effort. I care about what players do, and how they actually play and I like to see a scientific approach being taken to this most emotive and instinctive of games. Maybe I’m depriving myself of something, but I don’t really care. Fist pumping doesn’t win anything, as we're likely to find out when James Collins has to mark Harry Kane in a few short weeks. 

But that's for another day. Far below me, Randolph and Fonte exchange a celebratory hug and briefly look like Turk and JD from Scrubs, which makes me chuckle. I think I’d almost forgotten what it was like to laugh at a football game, so joyless has the experience been lately. I make a vow to myself here and now to try and prise some pleasure from the last few games of this season. 

I’m back to dreaming my peyote dreams again, I think. 

Wednesday Morning, 3AM

Later tonight I will watch Match of the Day for the first time in months, and wonder why I bothered. The euphoria of the win will have gone, the pundits will be underwhelmed and I'll be hit by the sad ennui of realising that 36 points does not a successful season make.

I will spend the rest of my night listening to Simon and Garfunkel, two men with voices so gorgeous you can drink them. I will allow myself to be whisked away to a dream state and try to forget this whole season. We've seen worse, let's be honest, and our grandfathers would probably think us pretty uppity if they heard us whinging about being one point off tenth with a few games to go. Those were men who went to watch West Ham with no dreams of Europe or top four finishes. Indeed, if Pards were to get them t-shirts made up they would doubtless have said "Moore in hope than expectation".

And so I walk out of the ground into the fading sunlight of Saturday London and there is a weight lifted and a curtain lowered. The Arsenal game from Wednesday night is still burning at the back of my mind and I don't think this particular scrappy home win will be enough to erase it. This manager was a shooting star once, but I think he might have burned himself out, and faded and died.

Just, in fact, like my dreams.

Swansea 1 - 4 West Ham (And Other Ramblings)

1. I'm A Man You Don't Meet Every Day

Shane MacGowan is 59 today. The list of pop stars whom he has outlived is quite frankly baffling now.

— Jason (@NickMotown) December 25, 2016

I know it's not entirely relevant but as this is a Pogues based H List, this seemed topical. Also, you should follow @nickmotown as he's a Hammer.

2. Sit Down By The Fire

INT. - Typical Nazareth homestead, 10 AD. Ten year old JESUS CHRIST is sitting watching the football results arriving on the BBC vidiprinter. His father JOSEPH and mother MARY are sitting behind him. Jesus is wearing a West Ham shirt with "5 - Hilton" on the back. We see on their TV screen the result WEST HAM 1 - 2 EAST BETHLEHEM scroll by.

JESUS

Dad, why are West Ham so shit?

JOSEPH

I'm not your dad.

MARY

Oh Christ, not this again. 

JESUS

I wish you wouldn't say that. 

JOSEPH

So why does Steve from Aldi's keep popping by Mary?

MARY

He's bringing water!

JOSEPH

Nobody needs that much water, Mary.

MARY

We do with the amount of wine you go through.

(pointing to Jesus)

He's knackered changing it all you know.

JESUS

That's true.

JOSEPH

Would it kill you to do a Beaujolais from time to time?

JESUS

I think you're abusing my powers, I'm only ten for fucks sake. 

MARY

His language is terrible. 

JOSEPH

It's a bit late for morality now, Mary. 

Suddenly, there is a flash of lightning and the room is filled with smoke. 

MARY

I told you to change that bloody fuse. You're a waste of space. 

From the smoke the ANGEL GABRIEL emerges and stands hands on hips in front of them. 

ANGEL GABRIEL

God is most disturbed by the goings on here. He is concerned for the welfare of his son here on earth. 

JOSEPH

(muttering)

Well he's not concerned enough to pay child support is he?

ANGEL GABRIEL

I heard that - he's got cashflow issues. Anyway, what would make this Christmas brilliant?

The three family members speak simultaneously. 

JOSEPH

Beaujolais!

MARY

An Aldi delivery!

JESUS

Could West Ham ever just fucking batter someone away from home on Boxing Day?

ANGEL GABRIEL

(points to Jesus)

He's the boss. 

JOSEPH

This is bullshit. 

ANGEL GABRIEL

OK kid, just as soon as we can figure out how to do it, West Ham will play away from home on Boxing Day and they will win very comfortably. Please note that games played in Portsmouth don't count. It says so in Genesis. 

JESUS

Does it? OK, whatever. Do you think it will take long?

ANGEL GABRIEL

(mumbling under his breath)

About two thousand years and six years, to be precise.

JESUS

What was that? I want it now. It's Christmas!

JOSEPH

I knew they shouldn't have named the fucking holiday after him. 

Brilliant. And now I have to go to Swansea.

3. The Sunny Side Of The Street

And so it was that after the fixture list declared we had to play four of the best teams in the division through November, it brought balance to the Force by getting us to play three of the worst in the run up to Christmas. Burnley, Hull and Swansea were thus gift wrapped and offered up like the socks that my family seem to think me incapable of buying for myself. 

After two dismal games at home, however, it was time for us to step up and actually win a game deservedly. With Manuel Lanzini ruled out through injury, Bilic used the opportunity to push Cheikhou Kouyate back into midfield, and for the first time we saw Andre Ayew playing in the "Number 10" role that seems the best way to guarantee his presence on our plane of existence. 

With Antonio and Payet either side we looked to carry a threat all over the place, although Havard Nordtveit was brought in on the right side of a back four, as it's just not a West Ham Christmas unless someone is playing out of position at right back. 

Swansea started relatively brightly, and could have taken the lead when Borja Baston skewed an effort wide, with quite possibly the first shot he'd ever taken with his left foot. It was, however, rather symptomatic of the general overall shittiness of the home team on the day. 

Shortly thereafter, Andy Carroll rose to head a Noble cross goalward, a Swansea defender was unable to intercept it as he was wearing large clown shoes, keeper Lukasz Fabianksi failed to gather the ball as his oven gloves were still smeared in cooking oil after Christmas dinner and none other than Ayew was on hand to tap home from 2 yards. 

After becoming the first team to concede a goal to Ayew this season, the Swans understandably fell apart with shame and we never looked back. A long period of pressure before half time didn't yield the goal it should have done, but Winston Reid popped up just after half time to nod in a Payet corner and that was all she wrote. 

Antonio subsequently stuck a leg out and redirected an errant Nordtveit shot in for the third, and Carroll volleyed home a Feghouli cross for the fourth, just moments after we conceded our contractually obliged crappy late consolation goal. Thus, with that, we had taken nine points from nine and off we go to a Vardyless Leicester on New Years Eve, dreaming of four wins in a row. 

As an aside, Ayew became the 41st player to score both for and against West Ham in the Premiership, which is a record, and seems to confirm our longstanding belief that any ex Hammer will always score against us. How nice for Ayew to repay the favour here. 

3. The Body Of An American

It is entirely possible that this result might be the nail in the coffin for Bob Bradley. The American arrived in Wales to much derision, largely because of his nationality, which bemused me slightly as Tim Sherwood has managed two Premier League teams and nobody batted an eyelid. Bradley has taken a team into the knock out stages of a World Cup (finishing above England in the group stages), as well as teams in Egypt, Norway and France, and yet is dismissed because he has a weird syntax. 

I'm not advocating that Bradley is doing a good job at Swansea, but decrying his ability on the grounds that he is American is bizarre, especially as he hasn't had the opportunity to recruit a single player.

And it's not like unknown foreign managers can't do a good job over here. Arsene Wenger and Mauricio Pochettino have been remarkably successful in England, even if they are more the exception than the rule. It's just sorting Pepe Mel from Claude Puel that remains the problem for most teams. 

Returning to Bradley's woes for a moment though - since arriving at Swansea, his team have conceded 3-0-3-3-1-4-5-0-3-3-4. Yeah, wow. See ya Bob.

Working at Swindon is like being at the World Cup. If you like. 

EDIT: Swansea did it. While I was writing this. I'd have looked prescient if I wasn't so lazy.

4. Fiesta

In the absence of the injured Lanzini, Andre Ayew started just behind Andy Carroll and finally seemed to have an actual purpose to his play. Scoring a tap in after just 13 minutes surely helped, but his general link play was excellent and his ability to retain possession under pressure was invaluable at allowing us to retain the ball. 

With Carroll totally dominant in the air, Ayew and Antonio were able to run beyond him and receive the ball in the final third. This in turn allowed us to generally play higher up the pitch, and it showed in our shot locations. Once again I'm using Paul Riley's great public plateau to generate this shot map:

Hallelujah! It's a Christmas miracle!

This game is actually an object lesson in the benefit of shot locations. We had the same number of shots at goal (14) as Swansea, and the same on target (7). The difference was that ours were so much more dangerous given where we were taking them from. 

It's easy to dismiss a game like this given the incredibly low quality of the opposition, but this was a big step forward in our attacking play. The reality is that we benefitted hugely from Swansea having the defensive solidity of a sandcastle, but it's also true that we created substantially more in the second half here than we did in the previous three games combined. We can begin every sentence describing this game with "We played well but...", solely due to the quality of the opposition but I'm not going to do that today. We were supposed to batter this team and we did it. Nice one lads.

5. If I Should Fall From Grace With God

I recall going to a game once years ago when the half time entertainment consisted of a penalty shootout in front of the Bobby Moore stand. As a few kids lined up to take shots, I suddenly paid attention to who was in goal and saw that it was none other than (then) youth team star player, Jermain Defoe. Can you imagine any other professional sports team that would risk injury to a hugely valuable asset in the name of half time entertainment?

Anyway, it's therefore not like we don't have a history of using our players wildly inappropriately, and thus Havard Nordtveit played this game at right back, and did just fine. After a start shakier than the camerawork on Saving Private Ryan, he has flourished in his last few appearances and finally seems to be coming to terms with the demands of the Premier League. It's ludicrous that he is playing at right back, of course, but we've covered that before.

Up against the tricky Wayne Routledge he had a couple of hairy moments but generally did pretty well, and did enough to suggest that his versatility could be useful. With Obiang, Noble and Kouyate all ahead of him, it's hard to see him starting regularly but given we're West Ham you can always bank on some injuries, and when that happens there have been enough positives recently to suggest that Nordtveit can step up and step in.

6. Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

Can we please take a moment to appreciate the undervalued magnificence of Michail Antonio? I have been more than a little critical of our recent transfer dealings, but the £7m purchase of Antonio must rank as one of the best signings by anyone anywhere in the last couple of seasons.

He is currently the joint highest English scorer in the league this season, and has scored 15 goals thus far in the 2016 calendar year. For comparison Harry Kane has scored 17, and hasn't had to spend any of that time playing at right back. It's interesting that Spurs have been so hugely lauded for signing Dele Alli from MK Dons - and quite rightly so, given his excellence at such a young age - but Antonio is a signing of comparable impact.

It's been a typical pastime for us this season to bemoan the lack of a striker, but Antonio has been quietly filling his boots as we tread water until January. His 8 goals are good for joint 5th in the league, and he's produced that while playing in more positions than you'd find in the Karma Sutra. I'd imagine.

Dele Alli is better than me is he?

7. Billy's Bones

I never got to see Billy Bonds in his prime, and indeed my only childhood memories of him are as a manager. Watching grainy video of him as a 41 year old doesn't seem to be the best way to savour his brilliance, any more than it would be to learn about Keith Richards by watching him in Pirates of the Caribbean.

Also a better manager than Avram Grant

I couldn't help but see something of the spirit of Bonzo in the swashbuckling performance of Winston Reid here though. Reid always looks a bit pissed off, as though it's only just occurred to him that if he'd simply been good at rugby like every other New Zealander he could have bought himself a beach house in Auckland instead of having to live in East London, but he seemed to have a particular bee in his bonnet here.

There was a distinct "thou-shall-not-pass" feel to his performance as he repelled Swansea almost single handedly, and it was actually something of a surprise that the Swans scored at all. His form took a distinct upturn around the time of the Spurs game, and has remained steady ever since. He may be the only defender to have ever had his reputation enhanced by a 5-1 defeat, as he did after the Arsenal game, and just generally he's looked like he's regained the form that made him such a key player for us a couple of years ago.

He had no right to win the header for his goal, surrounded as he was by two defenders, and if he carries on with this kind of form we can expect to see a general improvement in our defensive performances. Of course, if Angelo Ogbonna could remember he's Italian that would also be just capital.

8. The Auld Triangle

There was something lovely about watching our attacking play here. Dimitri Payet had a Red Hot Chili Pepper of an afternoon ("give it away, give it away, give it away now") but he can generally be relied upon for artistry when we need it, and his pass to Fernandes in the build up for the third goal was a beauty.

The interchanging front three of Payet, Antonio and Ayew were miles too good for Swansea and with Carroll ahead of them to provide muscular refuge whenever they needed it, we ended up carving the home team open at will.

The problem is that few teams will be as accommodating as Swansea. There was still a noticeable lack of running into the channels, although that was offset today by the excellence of Carroll's ball retention when the ball was hit to him. Against better teams that won't work, and without Sakho we still lack the ability to stretch opposition defences between the centre halves and full backs.

All of which is to say that there might be a temptation to stand pat in the January window. As much as I am terrified about what we might do in the transfer window, I'd also argue that with Calleri and Zaza not going to play for us again, we have to get someone. Carroll is never more than ten minutes from an injury and Sakho is already ruled out for another ten weeks, so it would be gross negligence of the highest order to fail to pick up another striker next month.

9. Modern World

My last piece caused slight stir in the sense that it was eventually retweeted by none other than David Gold on Christmas Eve.

My friends found this most amusing, and in particular took great delight at the use of the phrase "a touch of humour", but I must say that I appreciated his words and the fact that he was prepared to read something that was not solely a piece in praise of the Club.

I must confess that I found it startling that anyone at West Ham would read anything I'd ever written, much less retweet it to a wider audience. My pieces generally number a readership in the hundreds, and I'm from an Irish family so you have to write off half of those as being from blood relations, but after David's intervention that number doubled.

What was even more interesting was that at the same time we were being linked to a takeover by Red Bull.  This was carried in The Sun, so naturally none of the numbers make any sense - I've never valued a company but Sullivan and Gold paid around £80m for the Club and receive around £90m per year in TV money alone so they'd quite rightly never consider selling for "just" £200m.

Naturally, having highlighted Jack Sullivan's Twitter presence as a source of embarrassment to the Club in my article, young Jack gave me a huge metaphorical "fuck you" by then revealing on Twitter that they had previously turned down a £650m bid for the Club in the summer. And good for him I suppose. He gets far more abuse online than any teenager should have to put up with, and although I am incredulous that his family allow him the profile he has, I suppose we can't deny that he clearly loves the Club.

That said, I think we're only learning about the takeover now because Jack was at Adventure Scouts that week and they don't let them have any social media apparatus while they're away.

Quite apart from the complete lack of professionalism that it shows, to reveal significant financial developments on Twitter, it baffles me that the Club continue to operate like this. I don't have an issue with Sullivan and Gold declining an offer for the Club - it's their investment after all - but how can they not see that it is totally inappropriate to have the public face of the Club be a teenager?

As for the Red Bull offer, I'm all for better management, better decision making, better on and off field performances and the other improvements that would come with their ownership. I'm also fine with playing at the Red Bull arena and being sponsored by them.

I draw the line, however, at being called RB West Ham, or a nickname of the Red Bulls. And therein lies the problem I suppose. For each of us that line will be moveable, and for those who couldn't stomach a new badge I strongly suspect that Red Bull would be a step too far.

I'll say this though - they will buy someone in England and make a success of it, just as they have done in Germany. I suspect at this point that the biggest impediment to it being us is the cost.

10. Sitting On Top Of The World

Before I sign off, I'm guessing that this will be the last H List of the year, so please allow me this moment of self indulgence. To all of you who have read, retweeted, liked, shared, commented, recommended or simply tolerated my writing this year please know that I am eternally grateful.

I probably won't need any of you anymore now that I am being retweeted by David Gold, but it is truly gratifying to hear nice comments from those of you who read my inane rantings, and I'm especially grateful to those who pass it on and recommend The H List to others.

Lastly, thanks also to Graeme Howlett at KUMB for carrying the columns over there, and to Dan Silver, Terry Land, Emily Pulham and Jacob Steinberg for their contributions here this year.

Happy New Year to you all. We're going to beat the champions before the year is over.