1. Let's Show Some Fighting Spirit
Whatever happens tomorrow, I wouldn't mind seeing our manager have another pop at Arsene Wenger on the touchline. I'm aware it's not the same manager, but an Alan is an Alan is an Alan.
2. It's Tough In The Middle
So this is our first true test of the new season. Arsenal have begun their campaign marvellously, playing beautiful football, scoring lots of goals, beating tottenham and whinging a lot. So essentially, nothing new there.
We, on the other hand, have veered from nonsensically useless to quite good depending on whether we are playing at home or away.
Essentially, if we have genuine ambitions to be a moderate, mid table side again then we probably want to be drawing games like this.
Yeah man, the power of positive thinking.
3. The History
Unusually our recent record against Arsenal is excellent. We have lost just one of our last 6 games with the Gunners, which is probably God's way of making up for the fact that as a boy my two best friends were both Arsenal fans.
Last year saw a pair of semi-fortuitous 1-0 victories, with Marlon Harewood's last minute goal sealing the points at Upton Park, and a combination of Bobby Zamora, Robert Green and a magical forcefield around our goal helped gain the points at The Emirates.
Interestingly, we now hold the proud record of being the last team to win at Highbury, and the first to triumph at The Emirates. A nice achievement to be sure, but nowhere near as bonkers as the fact that the last time we won at Anfield they were compiling The Domesday Book.
Anyway, Arsenal are decidedly due a win.
4. The Opposition
It would be difficult to imagine a scenario in which a team could sell Thierry Henry for a mere £500k more than Darren Bent was sold for, and yet still improve. Nevertheless, that is exactly what Arsene Wenger has managed, as his remodelled side sit proudly atop the Premiership, doubtlessly sipping cappuccinos and tutting wildly at the uncouth English clubs below them.
Much of the resurgence appears to be centred around Cesc Fabregas, who has matured from a good footballer who whined a lot, to a very good footballer who still whines a lot. I can't deny the innate footballing talent but the petulance wears on me a bit.
Needless to say, there are no ex West Ham players with the visitors, but we have no less than 4 former Gooners on our books - Upson, Boa Morte, Ljungberg and Wright. The first and last of that quartet being decent examples of young Englishmen who lost their way under Wenger's tutelage.
At some point I'm hoping that Theo Walcott will be promoted from the canteen to the playing staff.
5. Hit The South
Dean Ashton has scored 9 goals for West Ham in his much curtailed stint with us. Until his excellent midweek winner against Plymouth he had not scored for us against any team more southerly than Birmingham.
Geographical quirk or not, score against some Londoners, Dean - you'll be a legend.
6. Attack!
Despite the enormity of the task, it should be said that we match up reasonably well with Arsenal. The only area of the pitch where we could claim an advantage would be in goal where Rob Green has the edge over Manuel Almunia, particularly now that the Spaniard has dyed his hair peroxide blonde.
Yet, these days Curbishley essentially has us set up to play like the away side, sitting deep and breaking with speed. This has worked well against teams prepared to attack us, and one would certainly expect Arsenal to be in that camp. Certainly Curbishley will want to pair his first choice strikers, Ashton and Bellamy, if only because William Gallas (a fine defender) is going to be replaced by Phillipe Senderos (another fine mess you've got us into).
7. Wear A Parker, It's Cold Out
If Bellamy and his broken groin don't make it, then Scott Parker may well be in line for his first League game of the year. This might not seem like an obvious choice, but I could see Parker being asked to sit on Fabregas for a while as we try and stop Arsenal playing.
I don't mean that literally, although I'm also not ruling it out. Once has to have an open mind in this game....
Friday, September 28, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Newcastle United 3 - 1 West Ham (And Other Ramblings)
1. Department Of The Obvious
I don't know about you, but I think our title challenge is over.
2. A Rant
On one hand it is incredibly churlish to get upset at losing to Newcastle. We never win there, in fact not that many people ever win there, and we've all still got our health.
But, Sweet Jesus, but, how did we not do better than this? Let's just take a look at the opposition: their best goalkeeper (Given) is inexplicably on the bench, their best defender is non-existent, their best midfielder (Barton) is injured and their best striker (Owen) has hamstrings made of chinese noodles. These aren't exactly the most fearsome foes around.
Now I'm not suggesting for a minute that we deserved to win this game, but I am saying that performances like this are exactly why West Ham will not be breaking into the upper echelons of English football any time soon. Here was a team ripe for the taking and we simply didn't have the ability to put them away.
Maybe it's the players, maybe it's the manager, maybe it's the juxtaposition of Mars and Venus but I'd have to guess that it is something more intangible than that.
Whatever it is, at some point, if we are to progress as a club then not losing games like this would be a fine place to start.
3. The Statistics
On the face of it, losing this game 3-1 would seem to be an impossibility. Newcastle managed 4 shots on target and scored with three of them. This is either good finishing or appalling defending, and considering that each goal was scored from within our 6 yard box I'd have to argue that it was the latter.
On the attacking front we mustered 15 shots to the home sides 12, of which 8 were on goal. For an away side that's actually a pretty decent showing, but yet another frustrating example of how our own shortcomings contributed to the defeat.
Despite all of that we only had the ball for 43% of the time, and truthfully didn't look all that flash while we did. Hey, it happens, we go away from home and don't play all that well. I can deal with that, but seriously - allowing Charles N'Zogbia to score? That's just silly. Stop it.
4. The Opposition
Say what you like about the Geordies but they know how to punish abysmal defending. Incredibly we actually fashioned a chance of sorts for Lee Bowyer in the 90 seconds before we conceded, but sadly, Lucas Neill decided that 1 minute into the game was the perfect time for him to embark on a pitch long mazy dribble past the entire Newcastle team. Tragically, if unsurprisingly, he got about 5 feet, was dispossessed, and from the resulting cross Mark Viduka nipped in front of Ferdinand for the opener.
Quite what that sa -
Interruption (*)
Hang on, back up a minute "Mark Viduka nipped in front of Ferdinand"? I'm afraid that Mark Viduka does not "nip" anywhere. Yes, he may well waddle or trundle or maybe even coagulate, but he sure as hell doesn't nip anywhere.
Being outmanoeuvred by him is proof that you pretty much have less mobility than an inanimate object. Nice going Anton.
(*) This interruption was brought to you by The Grammar Police
4. The Opposition (cont)
So anyway. They don't look any different than before. Michael Owen puts a nice full stop on things but he's not much help if he's dead.
Alan Smith is a curious mix of carbon dioxide, water, anger and Ryvita's.
5. The Referee
I have yet to see a game refereed by Mike Riley that didn't leave me puzzled. I have no idea what Riley sees when he's out there but it sure as hell isn't the same as me. In general there weren't very many controversial moments in this one but he did annoy me by allowing Nicky Butt to maul Mark Noble and then awarding the free kick to Newcastle.
Note to Mike Riley: Shoving people in the face is not allowed. Even for ex-Manchester United players.
And while we're on that topic, I would have liked to have seen Alan Smith booked for his late attempted 35 yard strike on goal. I mean, I'm all for guys trying to better themselves but come on - you're Alan Smith! Some self awareness, please.
6. Important Note
Does anyone know if Newcastle always come out for the second half to "Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over" by The Charlatans?
They have excellent taste if they do is all I'm saying.
7. Cole Patrol
Carlton Cole took it in the neck again. I can't deny that I'm finding all of this a little surprising. Sure, Cole is rather more lumbering donkey than thoroughbred and his Chelsea history doesn't help him a great deal (the Aston Villa bit offends me more, but I'm mercurial), but he is our player none the less.
More than that even, he has now directly assisted for 4 goals this year. Given that we have only scored 9 league goals, I'm thinking that this would make him a relatively vital part of the team at present.
I'm on record (Do you like that? Yes, there's a record, and by Jove I'm on it) as saying that booing isn't really my cup of tea but I accept that others feel differently. I'm just not sold on this particular hate figure.
OK, yes, there are gaping holes in his skill set, but he's our 5th choice striker - how much do you really expect from the guy?
It's either him or Luis Boa Morte. Ahem.
8. Great Strike
Kudos to Dean Ashton for a marvellously well taken goal. Can I whisper that it was a nice flick on by Carlton Cole? No.
Okey doke.
9. Not So Great Strike
Just how well did Viduka strike his second goal? After three television replays it was still unclear as to which foot Viduka had used to score. Indeed this might very well be the first recorded instance of a man scoring whilst kneeling down to pray.
10. What's Upson?
Here's a little conversation I had with myself on Sunday:
HeadHammerShark: "Alright Shark, you're looking well, been working out?"
HeadHammerShark: "Nope"
HeadHammerShark: "Excellent, what do you think of Matthew Upson then?"
HeadHammerShark: "Well, I like the general concept of Matthew Upson, but I struggle somewhat with the actual product"
HeadHammerShark: "Really? How so?"
HeadHammerShark: "He's big and strong, has nice hair and an impressive beard. What's not to like on the surface of things? But then you dig deeper and you realise that there is no pace, poor distribution and I just begin to wonder what he has that James Collins doesn't"
HeadHammerShark: "God, you're a clever bloke, I'd never thought of it like that"
HeadHammerShark: "And modest"
HeadHammerShark: "Yeah, OK, and modest"
HeadHammerShark: "And handsome"
Mrs Shark: (suspiciously) "Who are you talking to?"
I do have to ask the question - why was Ferdinand (small, pace of a cougar) marking Viduka (burly, pace of Ry Cooder)? And conversely why was Owen (small, pace of a cougar) being marked by Upson (burly, pace of a dead Ry Cooder)?
This combination could not be classified as a success after all.
10,000!
Some of you may have noticed that just before the preview for this game went out, the site received it's 10,000th hit. Leaving out visits from my family and friends, this means that there are at least 12 other loyal readers out there somewhere.
Using the scarily intrusive power of the Internet I have been able to determine that the said visitor logged on using Comcast Cable and lives somewhere in middle America. They didn't arrive via a Google search so they might actually have the site bookmarked. Whoever you are, I salute and thank you. If you'd like to introduce yourself please leave a comment telling us your name, how long you've been with the firm and perhaps one amusing thing that the rest of us wouldn't know about you.
Most websites would offer a monetary reward, but I have none. If you would like me to mock a Premier League player for you, that could be arranged, however.
(Clue: Michael Dawson always goes down well on that front.............)
I don't know about you, but I think our title challenge is over.
2. A Rant
On one hand it is incredibly churlish to get upset at losing to Newcastle. We never win there, in fact not that many people ever win there, and we've all still got our health.
But, Sweet Jesus, but, how did we not do better than this? Let's just take a look at the opposition: their best goalkeeper (Given) is inexplicably on the bench, their best defender is non-existent, their best midfielder (Barton) is injured and their best striker (Owen) has hamstrings made of chinese noodles. These aren't exactly the most fearsome foes around.
Now I'm not suggesting for a minute that we deserved to win this game, but I am saying that performances like this are exactly why West Ham will not be breaking into the upper echelons of English football any time soon. Here was a team ripe for the taking and we simply didn't have the ability to put them away.
Maybe it's the players, maybe it's the manager, maybe it's the juxtaposition of Mars and Venus but I'd have to guess that it is something more intangible than that.
Whatever it is, at some point, if we are to progress as a club then not losing games like this would be a fine place to start.
3. The Statistics
On the face of it, losing this game 3-1 would seem to be an impossibility. Newcastle managed 4 shots on target and scored with three of them. This is either good finishing or appalling defending, and considering that each goal was scored from within our 6 yard box I'd have to argue that it was the latter.
On the attacking front we mustered 15 shots to the home sides 12, of which 8 were on goal. For an away side that's actually a pretty decent showing, but yet another frustrating example of how our own shortcomings contributed to the defeat.
Despite all of that we only had the ball for 43% of the time, and truthfully didn't look all that flash while we did. Hey, it happens, we go away from home and don't play all that well. I can deal with that, but seriously - allowing Charles N'Zogbia to score? That's just silly. Stop it.
4. The Opposition
Say what you like about the Geordies but they know how to punish abysmal defending. Incredibly we actually fashioned a chance of sorts for Lee Bowyer in the 90 seconds before we conceded, but sadly, Lucas Neill decided that 1 minute into the game was the perfect time for him to embark on a pitch long mazy dribble past the entire Newcastle team. Tragically, if unsurprisingly, he got about 5 feet, was dispossessed, and from the resulting cross Mark Viduka nipped in front of Ferdinand for the opener.
Quite what that sa -
Interruption (*)
Hang on, back up a minute "Mark Viduka nipped in front of Ferdinand"? I'm afraid that Mark Viduka does not "nip" anywhere. Yes, he may well waddle or trundle or maybe even coagulate, but he sure as hell doesn't nip anywhere.
Being outmanoeuvred by him is proof that you pretty much have less mobility than an inanimate object. Nice going Anton.
(*) This interruption was brought to you by The Grammar Police
4. The Opposition (cont)
So anyway. They don't look any different than before. Michael Owen puts a nice full stop on things but he's not much help if he's dead.
Alan Smith is a curious mix of carbon dioxide, water, anger and Ryvita's.
5. The Referee
I have yet to see a game refereed by Mike Riley that didn't leave me puzzled. I have no idea what Riley sees when he's out there but it sure as hell isn't the same as me. In general there weren't very many controversial moments in this one but he did annoy me by allowing Nicky Butt to maul Mark Noble and then awarding the free kick to Newcastle.
Note to Mike Riley: Shoving people in the face is not allowed. Even for ex-Manchester United players.
And while we're on that topic, I would have liked to have seen Alan Smith booked for his late attempted 35 yard strike on goal. I mean, I'm all for guys trying to better themselves but come on - you're Alan Smith! Some self awareness, please.
6. Important Note
Does anyone know if Newcastle always come out for the second half to "Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over" by The Charlatans?
They have excellent taste if they do is all I'm saying.
7. Cole Patrol
Carlton Cole took it in the neck again. I can't deny that I'm finding all of this a little surprising. Sure, Cole is rather more lumbering donkey than thoroughbred and his Chelsea history doesn't help him a great deal (the Aston Villa bit offends me more, but I'm mercurial), but he is our player none the less.
More than that even, he has now directly assisted for 4 goals this year. Given that we have only scored 9 league goals, I'm thinking that this would make him a relatively vital part of the team at present.
I'm on record (Do you like that? Yes, there's a record, and by Jove I'm on it) as saying that booing isn't really my cup of tea but I accept that others feel differently. I'm just not sold on this particular hate figure.
OK, yes, there are gaping holes in his skill set, but he's our 5th choice striker - how much do you really expect from the guy?
It's either him or Luis Boa Morte. Ahem.
8. Great Strike
Kudos to Dean Ashton for a marvellously well taken goal. Can I whisper that it was a nice flick on by Carlton Cole? No.
Okey doke.
9. Not So Great Strike
Just how well did Viduka strike his second goal? After three television replays it was still unclear as to which foot Viduka had used to score. Indeed this might very well be the first recorded instance of a man scoring whilst kneeling down to pray.
10. What's Upson?
Here's a little conversation I had with myself on Sunday:
HeadHammerShark: "Alright Shark, you're looking well, been working out?"
HeadHammerShark: "Nope"
HeadHammerShark: "Excellent, what do you think of Matthew Upson then?"
HeadHammerShark: "Well, I like the general concept of Matthew Upson, but I struggle somewhat with the actual product"
HeadHammerShark: "Really? How so?"
HeadHammerShark: "He's big and strong, has nice hair and an impressive beard. What's not to like on the surface of things? But then you dig deeper and you realise that there is no pace, poor distribution and I just begin to wonder what he has that James Collins doesn't"
HeadHammerShark: "God, you're a clever bloke, I'd never thought of it like that"
HeadHammerShark: "And modest"
HeadHammerShark: "Yeah, OK, and modest"
HeadHammerShark: "And handsome"
Mrs Shark: (suspiciously) "Who are you talking to?"
I do have to ask the question - why was Ferdinand (small, pace of a cougar) marking Viduka (burly, pace of Ry Cooder)? And conversely why was Owen (small, pace of a cougar) being marked by Upson (burly, pace of a dead Ry Cooder)?
This combination could not be classified as a success after all.
10,000!
Some of you may have noticed that just before the preview for this game went out, the site received it's 10,000th hit. Leaving out visits from my family and friends, this means that there are at least 12 other loyal readers out there somewhere.
Using the scarily intrusive power of the Internet I have been able to determine that the said visitor logged on using Comcast Cable and lives somewhere in middle America. They didn't arrive via a Google search so they might actually have the site bookmarked. Whoever you are, I salute and thank you. If you'd like to introduce yourself please leave a comment telling us your name, how long you've been with the firm and perhaps one amusing thing that the rest of us wouldn't know about you.
Most websites would offer a monetary reward, but I have none. If you would like me to mock a Premier League player for you, that could be arranged, however.
(Clue: Michael Dawson always goes down well on that front.............)
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Newcastle United vs West Ham: 23rd September 2007 (Match Preview And Other Ramblings)
1. They're Dead Passionate, Like
A trip to the land of the barcode then. In what has been a fairly gentle start to the season, this is perhaps the first true test of the new, improved West Ham particularly as it is away from home where we have looked our most impressive.
Of course, the prospect of facing any team managed by Sam Allardyce is usually as enticing as getting Polio, but for some reason it doesn't seem quite so bad this time round, what with us being Not Rubbish on our travels, for a change.
Still, the cauldron that is St James's Park, home of "The most passionate fans in the world" (Copyright: Any Lazy Journalist), is a different kettle of fish to Birmingham and Reading (Except in 1990/91 when their average gate was 16,835 - but that was before Euro 96 so it doesn't count because football hadn't been invented then).
2. The History
Our short term history on the Tyne isn't so appalling as one might expect. Last year saw us take a deserved early 2-0 lead before a combination of egregiously inept finishing and a Uriah Rennie lobotomy saw us blow it and gain only a point.
That said, we haven't won there since 1998 when Ian Wright inspired a 3-0 victory and Stuart Pearce was sent off for garroting Trevor Sinclair. It really doesn't feel like it, but we don't beat Newcastle very often.
3. The Opposition
Up until we bought all of their players I would have said that Newcastle were the very definition of a club that was less than the sum of their parts. Quite how you can spend the GDP of Zambia on a football team and still be this consistently bad is beyond me.
Now that we have all of the players who made them so useless, I imagine that we too can look forward to the stultification of all our hopes and dreams. Marvellous.
Between them Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins and Albert Luque cost around £35m and have so far made a combined 56 League starts between them. The former two are still at the club and very well might go on to score bucketloads I suppose, but it does highlight the Geordie propensity to take good players and turn them into crustaceans.
New arrivals this year include Alan Smith, about whom nothing good has ever been said.
4. I Wonder About The Boy Wonder
I usually pay about as much attention to other teams transfer dealings as I do to Hansard, but I must confessed to being hugely disappointed when Michael Owen joined Newcastle.
Firstly, I hate to see English players conceding defeat when trying to make it overseas, but perhaps even worse was the apparent decision he made to turn his back on a fight to win a place at Madrid in exchange for the constant mediocrity, but far heftier pay packet at Newcastle.
I don't know why we have a tendency to imbue footballers with a sense of altruism that we ourselves don't possess, but it certainly doesn't seem like there can be a lot of difference between £80,000 and £100,000 a week, where as there would seem to be a hell of a difference between English mid table tedium and Spanish aristocracy.
I guess I'm just saying that the guy used to win European Player of the Year awards, and now he's exchanging passes with Shola Ameobi.
It's a hard knock life.
5. An Addendum
Another reason to dislike the return of Owen is that he has scored 10 goals in 10 games against us. That's like, an average of one a game (You're probably wondering, yes I am an accountant).
My suggested method of dealing with this is poisoning.
6. The Need For Speed
Last week saw the truly glacial pairing of James Collins and Matthew Upson at the heart of our defence. Now that kind of thing might work against Middlesbrough when they are playing two yukka trees up front, but Owen and Martins will surely burst right through that particular wall of resistance.
As unfortunate as Collins was to lose his place after a stellar end of season run of form, he would seem the more likely to make way. I can't say that I have seen anything about Upson to suggest that he is the better of the two but Curbishley clearly does, so one would expect the Welshman to step aside for the returning Ferdinand.
Lucas Neill has no speed at all. It won't matter.
7. Medical Matters
Don't worry about the large trail of bandages around our training ground, as our crack medical team are on the case. Even as we speak they are placing leeches on Craig Bellamy's troublesome groin, and sacrificing a goat in order to clear up Scott Parker's aching knees.
8. The Return
Tomorrow will see large swathes of underachievers return to St James's Park. Bellamy will doubtless be afforded the red carpet treatment that tends to follow him everywhere, whilst Parker and Bowyer didn't really cover themselves in glory during their varying tenures on Tyneside.
The one who will be most warmly received is likely to be Nolberto Solano, who at this point remains a theoretical concept as far as I'm concerned .
A trip to the land of the barcode then. In what has been a fairly gentle start to the season, this is perhaps the first true test of the new, improved West Ham particularly as it is away from home where we have looked our most impressive.
Of course, the prospect of facing any team managed by Sam Allardyce is usually as enticing as getting Polio, but for some reason it doesn't seem quite so bad this time round, what with us being Not Rubbish on our travels, for a change.
Still, the cauldron that is St James's Park, home of "The most passionate fans in the world" (Copyright: Any Lazy Journalist), is a different kettle of fish to Birmingham and Reading (Except in 1990/91 when their average gate was 16,835 - but that was before Euro 96 so it doesn't count because football hadn't been invented then).
2. The History
Our short term history on the Tyne isn't so appalling as one might expect. Last year saw us take a deserved early 2-0 lead before a combination of egregiously inept finishing and a Uriah Rennie lobotomy saw us blow it and gain only a point.
That said, we haven't won there since 1998 when Ian Wright inspired a 3-0 victory and Stuart Pearce was sent off for garroting Trevor Sinclair. It really doesn't feel like it, but we don't beat Newcastle very often.
3. The Opposition
Up until we bought all of their players I would have said that Newcastle were the very definition of a club that was less than the sum of their parts. Quite how you can spend the GDP of Zambia on a football team and still be this consistently bad is beyond me.
Now that we have all of the players who made them so useless, I imagine that we too can look forward to the stultification of all our hopes and dreams. Marvellous.
Between them Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins and Albert Luque cost around £35m and have so far made a combined 56 League starts between them. The former two are still at the club and very well might go on to score bucketloads I suppose, but it does highlight the Geordie propensity to take good players and turn them into crustaceans.
New arrivals this year include Alan Smith, about whom nothing good has ever been said.
4. I Wonder About The Boy Wonder
I usually pay about as much attention to other teams transfer dealings as I do to Hansard, but I must confessed to being hugely disappointed when Michael Owen joined Newcastle.
Firstly, I hate to see English players conceding defeat when trying to make it overseas, but perhaps even worse was the apparent decision he made to turn his back on a fight to win a place at Madrid in exchange for the constant mediocrity, but far heftier pay packet at Newcastle.
I don't know why we have a tendency to imbue footballers with a sense of altruism that we ourselves don't possess, but it certainly doesn't seem like there can be a lot of difference between £80,000 and £100,000 a week, where as there would seem to be a hell of a difference between English mid table tedium and Spanish aristocracy.
I guess I'm just saying that the guy used to win European Player of the Year awards, and now he's exchanging passes with Shola Ameobi.
It's a hard knock life.
5. An Addendum
Another reason to dislike the return of Owen is that he has scored 10 goals in 10 games against us. That's like, an average of one a game (You're probably wondering, yes I am an accountant).
My suggested method of dealing with this is poisoning.
6. The Need For Speed
Last week saw the truly glacial pairing of James Collins and Matthew Upson at the heart of our defence. Now that kind of thing might work against Middlesbrough when they are playing two yukka trees up front, but Owen and Martins will surely burst right through that particular wall of resistance.
As unfortunate as Collins was to lose his place after a stellar end of season run of form, he would seem the more likely to make way. I can't say that I have seen anything about Upson to suggest that he is the better of the two but Curbishley clearly does, so one would expect the Welshman to step aside for the returning Ferdinand.
Lucas Neill has no speed at all. It won't matter.
7. Medical Matters
Don't worry about the large trail of bandages around our training ground, as our crack medical team are on the case. Even as we speak they are placing leeches on Craig Bellamy's troublesome groin, and sacrificing a goat in order to clear up Scott Parker's aching knees.
8. The Return
Tomorrow will see large swathes of underachievers return to St James's Park. Bellamy will doubtless be afforded the red carpet treatment that tends to follow him everywhere, whilst Parker and Bowyer didn't really cover themselves in glory during their varying tenures on Tyneside.
The one who will be most warmly received is likely to be Nolberto Solano, who at this point remains a theoretical concept as far as I'm concerned .
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
West Ham 3 - 0 Middlesbrough (And Other Ramblings)
1. I Am So Excited At Writing About Middlesbrough....
Apropos of nothing very much at all: Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans. Should you ever decide you would like to try and make friends with or, heaven forbid, marry one of the buggers, then here's some advice - don't be English.
Thanks then to the various English sporting teams who have contrived to lose 117 consecutive encounters with representatives from those nations.
I'm just saying. Right then, let's get on with it.
2. Our Friends In The North
Not that I think Boro fans are a higher species or anything, but there is something admirable about coming to a game where your chances of winning are ludicrously remote. Lest we not forget, they have scored just once here this Millennium.
I suspect that Liverpool fans might take a similarly sympathetic view of us.
Still, they played better than last year (impossible not to), and achieved a worse result.
3. The Statistics
This was a curious game in every sense. Middlesbrough achieved an atrocious result whilst performing less atrociously than usual. They were still rubbish but, none the less, 3-0 flattered us somewhat.
The possession count favoured us with a 57% majority, although we converted this to less shots on target (7) than Boro (12). It's worth bearing in mind, however, that half of those shots were taken by Mido, Jeremie Aliadiere and Tuncay, which is about as unholy a triumvirate as you will find anywhere.
Lucas Neill also somehow managed to get himself caught offside. Jet lag is a funny thing.
4. The Opposition
Regular readers of this column will know that Boro are one of my least favourite teams. There is nothing redeeming about their style of play, and I'm afraid that the default position for watching them is "Tedium".
All of the above withstanding, they weren't as risible as usual this time out. The early part of the first half saw us in the ascendancy, and Dean Ashton was correctly ruled offside before netting a neat goal. Thereafter things evened up somewhat and Aliadiere hit the post when he really should have done better. Both he and Bellamy then went off injured, with Tuncay and Carlton Cole proving to be impact substitutes in every sense.
Tuncay in particular was incessant in his uselessness, missing no less than 3 clear one on one chances. I'm afraid that hitting the woodwork is not unlucky if you do it in a situation when a mannequin would manage better.
5. The Role Of Cole
If you had asked me to describe Carlton Cole just two short weeks ago, I would have said that he was a player unrivalled in his ability to make nothing out of something.
Since then we have scored 6 goals, of which Cole has provided the assist for 3. Any way you cut it, that is a hell of the contribution. (True - one of those assists required Luke Young to misplace his cerebrum, but let us not be churlish).
Odd then, that Cole received some stick at the beginning of this game. I must confess I don't really go in for booing players anyway - the physical act of yelling the word "Boo" at another grown man doesn't strike me as something I should be doing - but I'm fairly ambivalent about everyone else doing it.
Cole has unquestionably failed to deliver in his time with us, but he is what he is. A lumbering, slow centre forward who will occasionally deliver Premiership standard performances. I can live with that provided that he is our fourth choice striker. Sure, our forwards are currently dropping like it's Ypres 1916 but hey-ho, such is life with a transfer window.
6. Into The Ether (Again)
Post match analysis of this game has seen Matthew Etherington receive some support in the media for a place in the next England squad.
Now before we progress that any further let me assert for the record that Etherington is nowhere near good enough to be playing for England. However, neither are (conservatively) half of the current squad so his consideration isn't entirely frivolous.
The reason for this is probably because his opposite number on Saturday, Stewart Downing, is the current incumbent of the back up left winger spot, or the "Oh Christ, Joe Cole's injured" position, as it's better known. Now Downing is a terrible player, but he is a Steve McClaren protege and unlikely to be replaced by Etherington, particularly when this could just be a flash in the pan anyway.
Besides, and we've covered this, no good can come of our players being involved with England.
7. Some History
Winning back to back league games by scores of 3-0 is fairly rare for us. We last managed it in 1947 by my reckoning, with victories over Newport and Swansea. It's always nice when your club records date back to the time of the ration book.
And the last time we scored 3 in back to back games? May 2007. Move along.
8. Death By Transfer
It's truly spiffing this lark of paying several million pounds for new players to then sit in our treatment room for months. After an impressive beginning Craig Bellamy is now going to be out for an unspecified amount of time with "West Ham Groin". Craig we hardly knew ye.
Per our website, Scott Parker has "(1 week)" next to his name. I don't know if this is when he is expected back or how long he has to live.
Somewhere Rob Jenkins (the former West Ham physio who tried to treat Stewart Robson's damaged groin by having him wear a hot potato down his shorts) is looking on fondly.
9. The Link Between Oscar Wilde And Gary Lineker
After a summer spent avoiding newspapers filled with poorly researched, half baked theories on Tevez-gate, I am reminded of a suitable Lord Henry Wotton quote.
"There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about".
We have just won back to back Premier League games 3-0 against respectable mid table opposition, and the Match of The Day analysis has been as follows:
"And congratulations to West Ham" (Reading)
"And the Hammers must be happy as they move up to fifth" (Boro)
Now, moaning about MoTD coverage is really spitting into the hurricane. All broadcasters in this country are obsessed with the self styled "Big 4" and the rest of us must simply grin and bear it and feast on the scraps. Of course, had Lee Bowyer's goal been scored by Steven Gerrard, the reaction would have been orgiastic in the MoTD studios, but c'est la vie. It probably didn't help that Bowyer celebrated by getting so angry that his scapula exploded either.
All things being equal, however, did we as a nation really deserve fifteen minutes of analysis on Liverpool and Chelsea, when they both played in dull as ditch water goalless draws?
Someone think of the children.
10. When Sideways Is Upwards
So Eggert Magnusson is no longer the front man of the new Upton Park revolution.
Depending on who you believe, he has been shunted aside after a disastrous summer in the transfer market, or promoted to concentrate on strategic planning. People who know more about business than I (think of a human - there you go, they qualify) have suggested that this is not an uncommon move for City firms to make, but in the footballing world it has been perceived as a sidelining.
If it means that we might buy players from somewhere other than Newcastle I can probably live with it.....
Apropos of nothing very much at all: Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans. Should you ever decide you would like to try and make friends with or, heaven forbid, marry one of the buggers, then here's some advice - don't be English.
Thanks then to the various English sporting teams who have contrived to lose 117 consecutive encounters with representatives from those nations.
I'm just saying. Right then, let's get on with it.
2. Our Friends In The North
Not that I think Boro fans are a higher species or anything, but there is something admirable about coming to a game where your chances of winning are ludicrously remote. Lest we not forget, they have scored just once here this Millennium.
I suspect that Liverpool fans might take a similarly sympathetic view of us.
Still, they played better than last year (impossible not to), and achieved a worse result.
3. The Statistics
This was a curious game in every sense. Middlesbrough achieved an atrocious result whilst performing less atrociously than usual. They were still rubbish but, none the less, 3-0 flattered us somewhat.
The possession count favoured us with a 57% majority, although we converted this to less shots on target (7) than Boro (12). It's worth bearing in mind, however, that half of those shots were taken by Mido, Jeremie Aliadiere and Tuncay, which is about as unholy a triumvirate as you will find anywhere.
Lucas Neill also somehow managed to get himself caught offside. Jet lag is a funny thing.
4. The Opposition
Regular readers of this column will know that Boro are one of my least favourite teams. There is nothing redeeming about their style of play, and I'm afraid that the default position for watching them is "Tedium".
All of the above withstanding, they weren't as risible as usual this time out. The early part of the first half saw us in the ascendancy, and Dean Ashton was correctly ruled offside before netting a neat goal. Thereafter things evened up somewhat and Aliadiere hit the post when he really should have done better. Both he and Bellamy then went off injured, with Tuncay and Carlton Cole proving to be impact substitutes in every sense.
Tuncay in particular was incessant in his uselessness, missing no less than 3 clear one on one chances. I'm afraid that hitting the woodwork is not unlucky if you do it in a situation when a mannequin would manage better.
5. The Role Of Cole
If you had asked me to describe Carlton Cole just two short weeks ago, I would have said that he was a player unrivalled in his ability to make nothing out of something.
Since then we have scored 6 goals, of which Cole has provided the assist for 3. Any way you cut it, that is a hell of the contribution. (True - one of those assists required Luke Young to misplace his cerebrum, but let us not be churlish).
Odd then, that Cole received some stick at the beginning of this game. I must confess I don't really go in for booing players anyway - the physical act of yelling the word "Boo" at another grown man doesn't strike me as something I should be doing - but I'm fairly ambivalent about everyone else doing it.
Cole has unquestionably failed to deliver in his time with us, but he is what he is. A lumbering, slow centre forward who will occasionally deliver Premiership standard performances. I can live with that provided that he is our fourth choice striker. Sure, our forwards are currently dropping like it's Ypres 1916 but hey-ho, such is life with a transfer window.
6. Into The Ether (Again)
Post match analysis of this game has seen Matthew Etherington receive some support in the media for a place in the next England squad.
Now before we progress that any further let me assert for the record that Etherington is nowhere near good enough to be playing for England. However, neither are (conservatively) half of the current squad so his consideration isn't entirely frivolous.
The reason for this is probably because his opposite number on Saturday, Stewart Downing, is the current incumbent of the back up left winger spot, or the "Oh Christ, Joe Cole's injured" position, as it's better known. Now Downing is a terrible player, but he is a Steve McClaren protege and unlikely to be replaced by Etherington, particularly when this could just be a flash in the pan anyway.
Besides, and we've covered this, no good can come of our players being involved with England.
7. Some History
Winning back to back league games by scores of 3-0 is fairly rare for us. We last managed it in 1947 by my reckoning, with victories over Newport and Swansea. It's always nice when your club records date back to the time of the ration book.
And the last time we scored 3 in back to back games? May 2007. Move along.
8. Death By Transfer
It's truly spiffing this lark of paying several million pounds for new players to then sit in our treatment room for months. After an impressive beginning Craig Bellamy is now going to be out for an unspecified amount of time with "West Ham Groin". Craig we hardly knew ye.
Per our website, Scott Parker has "(1 week)" next to his name. I don't know if this is when he is expected back or how long he has to live.
Somewhere Rob Jenkins (the former West Ham physio who tried to treat Stewart Robson's damaged groin by having him wear a hot potato down his shorts) is looking on fondly.
9. The Link Between Oscar Wilde And Gary Lineker
After a summer spent avoiding newspapers filled with poorly researched, half baked theories on Tevez-gate, I am reminded of a suitable Lord Henry Wotton quote.
"There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about".
We have just won back to back Premier League games 3-0 against respectable mid table opposition, and the Match of The Day analysis has been as follows:
"And congratulations to West Ham" (Reading)
"And the Hammers must be happy as they move up to fifth" (Boro)
Now, moaning about MoTD coverage is really spitting into the hurricane. All broadcasters in this country are obsessed with the self styled "Big 4" and the rest of us must simply grin and bear it and feast on the scraps. Of course, had Lee Bowyer's goal been scored by Steven Gerrard, the reaction would have been orgiastic in the MoTD studios, but c'est la vie. It probably didn't help that Bowyer celebrated by getting so angry that his scapula exploded either.
All things being equal, however, did we as a nation really deserve fifteen minutes of analysis on Liverpool and Chelsea, when they both played in dull as ditch water goalless draws?
Someone think of the children.
10. When Sideways Is Upwards
So Eggert Magnusson is no longer the front man of the new Upton Park revolution.
Depending on who you believe, he has been shunted aside after a disastrous summer in the transfer market, or promoted to concentrate on strategic planning. People who know more about business than I (think of a human - there you go, they qualify) have suggested that this is not an uncommon move for City firms to make, but in the footballing world it has been perceived as a sidelining.
If it means that we might buy players from somewhere other than Newcastle I can probably live with it.....
Thursday, September 13, 2007
West Ham vs Middlesbrough: 15th September 2007 (Match Preview And Other Ramblings)
1. The Boys Are Back In Town
Everybody, unlock your daughters! Middlesbrough are coming! Somnambulents - get yer asses down the Boleyn, I have a cure!
Sweet Lord above - if there is a more dull prospect in the cosmos than watching Middlesbrough play, then it would have to involve painting, or creosoting, or at the very least James Blunt.
2. The History
The nearest the Boro came to any silverware last year was their prestigious H List "Worst Opposition Team" award. This was a fairly undisputed decision based upon a turgid 2-0 defeat towards the end of the season. Bobby Zamora and Carlos Tevez did the honours, with neither likely to do the same this time around, although one could make a strong case that Tevez is still the more probable of the two.
It would be safe to say that Middlesbrough have a truly dire record at Upton Park, with just one win here since 1990. Karmically that was a bad one, given that the winner was scored by Brian Deane, but even during their small window of decency in the late 90's we held the Indian sign over the visitors.
In true West Ham fashion we have repaid this debt many times over by transforming into amoeba on any and all journeys to the North East in the meantime.
3. The Opposition
If it is true that teams take on the personality of their manager then Middlesbrough would be a prime example. Gareth Southgate is a nice enough chap, I'm sure, but he has the personality of a wardrobe, and none of the flair.
Reading a few online previews from Boro fans they seem to feel that the team have turned a corner from the chronic mundanity of the Steve McClaren era, and now are essentially the second coming of Brazil circa 1970. Even allowing for the natural bias of football fans that kind of delusion generally requires magic mushrooms somewhere down the line.
Your front two are Mido and Jeremie Aliadiere! These men are fungi!
I can accept that the likes of Gary O'Neil and Julio Arca are underrated, whilst Jonathan Woodgate is a truly exceptional if truly injured player, but come on - Middlesbrough are putrid.
4. You Look Familiar
There is a chance that Scott Parker may make a belated debut tomorrow, having come through a midweek friendly against Colchester without needing the assistance of Dr Greg House. I'd be surprised if he went straight back into the team given the very decent form of Noble and Mullins but it would be nice to see our bench options swelling.
Freddie Ljungberg appears to have realised that he is the goalscoring midfielder on my fantasy team, and has hence emigrated for the last 4 weeks. I suppose he might return, but I don't think Packitupsonyourfathersonnightwork FC are going to recover from our slow start to the year.
Curse you mindless summer optimism.
5. I've Been Away
Alan Curbishley is a bit upset that our glittering cast of international superstars will have to play on a Saturday after their various globetrotting exploits.
Craig Bellamy inspired Wales to a fairly unbelievable 5-2 win in Slovakia, with what John Toshack described as the best individual performance he had seen in some time. Truth be told, I can't imagine there has been a great deal of competition in the Welsh team. Danny Gabbidon and James Collins also played and didn't blow anything up. Kudos.
George McCartney went to Iceland and didn't have all that enjoyable a time as Northern Ireland lost 2-1 courtesy of a last minute own goal from Keith Gillespie (pay attention at the back, that might be relevant later).
On the flight back to the UK he then ended up in a brawl with the aforementioned Gillespie. The latter does play for Sheffield United so perhaps George is a bit fed up of Kevin McCabe's idiocy too.
Mark Noble continued his fine early season form with a goal for England Under 21's in Bulgaria and Jonathan Spector probably played somewhere for the US.
I should really mention Nolberto Solano who played for Peru, but until I see him standing uncomfortably at the training ground with our Curb's arm round his shoulder in a slightly cringeworthy way, then I'm not going to consider him a Hammer.
6. (Otherworldy)
Luis Boa Morte does not play international football. Instead he ventures off to distant parts of the galaxy and finds new worlds, terra forms them, and then plays keepie uppies using those planets with the Lord God himself.
Probably.
7. I've Been Away - Even Further
To top that, Lucas Neill trumped everyone in respect of airmiles as he flew back to Australia for a 1-0 friendly defeat against Argentina.
It's hard to imagine that a round trip like that would leave anyone in decent physical condition, although his pure Lucasneillitude should see him through. It won't hurt that he is likely to be in direct opposition to Stewart Downing who isn't exactly a fully functioning biped.
8. Mido The Weirdo
In his time in England, Mido has played exactly twice against us, and scored exactly twice. He managed one League goal all season last year, which was the winner against us in October. That just hurts my eyebrows.
His move to Middlesbrough has begun well, with two goals in his first two games, although it took a fair bit of cheek to claim his first one, which really should have been saved by Tony Warner were it not for his curious decision to wear two large foam "Number 1" gloves.
He's rubbish. If he scores I'm going to pre complete all of Matthew Upson's crosswords before he receives his morning newspaper.....
Everybody, unlock your daughters! Middlesbrough are coming! Somnambulents - get yer asses down the Boleyn, I have a cure!
Sweet Lord above - if there is a more dull prospect in the cosmos than watching Middlesbrough play, then it would have to involve painting, or creosoting, or at the very least James Blunt.
2. The History
The nearest the Boro came to any silverware last year was their prestigious H List "Worst Opposition Team" award. This was a fairly undisputed decision based upon a turgid 2-0 defeat towards the end of the season. Bobby Zamora and Carlos Tevez did the honours, with neither likely to do the same this time around, although one could make a strong case that Tevez is still the more probable of the two.
It would be safe to say that Middlesbrough have a truly dire record at Upton Park, with just one win here since 1990. Karmically that was a bad one, given that the winner was scored by Brian Deane, but even during their small window of decency in the late 90's we held the Indian sign over the visitors.
In true West Ham fashion we have repaid this debt many times over by transforming into amoeba on any and all journeys to the North East in the meantime.
3. The Opposition
If it is true that teams take on the personality of their manager then Middlesbrough would be a prime example. Gareth Southgate is a nice enough chap, I'm sure, but he has the personality of a wardrobe, and none of the flair.
Reading a few online previews from Boro fans they seem to feel that the team have turned a corner from the chronic mundanity of the Steve McClaren era, and now are essentially the second coming of Brazil circa 1970. Even allowing for the natural bias of football fans that kind of delusion generally requires magic mushrooms somewhere down the line.
Your front two are Mido and Jeremie Aliadiere! These men are fungi!
I can accept that the likes of Gary O'Neil and Julio Arca are underrated, whilst Jonathan Woodgate is a truly exceptional if truly injured player, but come on - Middlesbrough are putrid.
4. You Look Familiar
There is a chance that Scott Parker may make a belated debut tomorrow, having come through a midweek friendly against Colchester without needing the assistance of Dr Greg House. I'd be surprised if he went straight back into the team given the very decent form of Noble and Mullins but it would be nice to see our bench options swelling.
Freddie Ljungberg appears to have realised that he is the goalscoring midfielder on my fantasy team, and has hence emigrated for the last 4 weeks. I suppose he might return, but I don't think Packitupsonyourfathersonnightwork FC are going to recover from our slow start to the year.
Curse you mindless summer optimism.
5. I've Been Away
Alan Curbishley is a bit upset that our glittering cast of international superstars will have to play on a Saturday after their various globetrotting exploits.
Craig Bellamy inspired Wales to a fairly unbelievable 5-2 win in Slovakia, with what John Toshack described as the best individual performance he had seen in some time. Truth be told, I can't imagine there has been a great deal of competition in the Welsh team. Danny Gabbidon and James Collins also played and didn't blow anything up. Kudos.
George McCartney went to Iceland and didn't have all that enjoyable a time as Northern Ireland lost 2-1 courtesy of a last minute own goal from Keith Gillespie (pay attention at the back, that might be relevant later).
On the flight back to the UK he then ended up in a brawl with the aforementioned Gillespie. The latter does play for Sheffield United so perhaps George is a bit fed up of Kevin McCabe's idiocy too.
Mark Noble continued his fine early season form with a goal for England Under 21's in Bulgaria and Jonathan Spector probably played somewhere for the US.
I should really mention Nolberto Solano who played for Peru, but until I see him standing uncomfortably at the training ground with our Curb's arm round his shoulder in a slightly cringeworthy way, then I'm not going to consider him a Hammer.
6. (Otherworldy)
Luis Boa Morte does not play international football. Instead he ventures off to distant parts of the galaxy and finds new worlds, terra forms them, and then plays keepie uppies using those planets with the Lord God himself.
Probably.
7. I've Been Away - Even Further
To top that, Lucas Neill trumped everyone in respect of airmiles as he flew back to Australia for a 1-0 friendly defeat against Argentina.
It's hard to imagine that a round trip like that would leave anyone in decent physical condition, although his pure Lucasneillitude should see him through. It won't hurt that he is likely to be in direct opposition to Stewart Downing who isn't exactly a fully functioning biped.
8. Mido The Weirdo
In his time in England, Mido has played exactly twice against us, and scored exactly twice. He managed one League goal all season last year, which was the winner against us in October. That just hurts my eyebrows.
His move to Middlesbrough has begun well, with two goals in his first two games, although it took a fair bit of cheek to claim his first one, which really should have been saved by Tony Warner were it not for his curious decision to wear two large foam "Number 1" gloves.
He's rubbish. If he scores I'm going to pre complete all of Matthew Upson's crosswords before he receives his morning newspaper.....
Monday, September 03, 2007
Reading 0 - 3 West Ham (And Other Ramblings)
1. I Knew That Was Going To Happen
As Kevin McCabe has doubtlessly never said - "There's nowt so esoteric as folk".
I cannot even begin to comprehend how a team can play so abjectly when faced with a moderately well organised Wigan side, and then transform into 1950's Honved at the sight of a decent, if no longer surprising, Reading outfit.
My preview for this game wasn't exactly chipper, even by H List standards, but I think there were very few Hammers out there who fancied us for this one.
Playing at a venue with a tendency to turn our players into blancmange, and again missing several new signings it was even easier than usual to be pessimistic about our chances. Inspired, however, by a fantastic performance from Craig Bellamy we chewed up Reading, rolled them around inside our mouth, got some stuck in our braces and spat them out.
And Matthew Etherington scored. Twice!
*Goes for a lie down*
2. An Admission Of Guilt
It is certainly true that on various occasions during the life of this blog I have perhaps been a little bit unkind to Craig Bellamy.
Craig, let's put our petty squabbling behind us and just forget about who may or may not have called the other one a goblin. You just continue playing like a demi-god and I'll keep my literary barbs aimed in other directions.
3. The Statistics
For a three goal drubbing the statistics of this game are somewhat skewed. By that I mean we battered the home side whilst having just 46% of the possession. This in itself isn't an unnecessarily unfair reflection as Reading did have a decent amount of the ball, but were simply anaemic in using it.
In all we had 14 attempts on goal, abandoning our usual blunderbuss approach and getting a hitherto unprecedented 10 (Ten I say!) on target. Reading, by contrast, mustered just three goal bound efforts and found Robert Green in a decidedly "Thou Shalt Not Pass" kind of mood.
4. The Opposition
It's not hard to imagine that Reading might be heading for something of a fall this year. Steve Sidwell has gone off to the Chelsea bench and Nicky Shorey seems destined to join our injury list in January. With no notable improvement in their squad over the summer, and a glaring lack of joie de vivre about their play, it does rather feel that they have stood still in comparison to the rest of the league.
Come the end of the year it is still likely that this result will be seen as a startling one, but in general it's easy to see Reading falling away somewhat this season.
Evidence for the prosecution, Exhibit A:
During the second half Reading's back 4 did a very passable impression of a large expanse of empty grass.
5. The Referee
Howard Webb. Usually performs inconsistently. Did OK. Gave Reading a penalty which was perfectly correct. Okey Dokey.
6. Into The Ether
During a conversation with a friend recently I discovered that the classic novel "The Catcher In The Rye" is about suicide. I have to confess I missed this, thinking as I did that it was about truancy. For you see, rather like the Arctic Ocean I am wide but I am not very deep.
So, when Matthew Etherington attributes his improved play this year to his lack of gambling I rather shrug my shoulders. I'm not disputing that it may be true, but I'm also not going to get all that excited about a player admitting that the reason he was execrable during one of our worst ever seasons was because he was more interested in the 3.10 at Goodwood than he was in practising his free kicks.
As far as I'm concerned Etherington owes us a season and to be fair, he is delivering so far, albeit in a ridiculously small sample size.
I would even go far as to state that a good season for Etherington will equal a good season for West Ham, if only because it will likely mean Less Luis Boa Morte.
Kudos as well on not turning into a newt when faced with a one on one with the keeper. This is a pleasing new development.
7. Away Day Blues?
Are we money away from home or what? We have now won 4 consecutive away games without conceding a goal (Reading, Birmingham, Man Utd, Wigan) and 6 of the last 7 (Arsenal, Blackburn). Our solitary defeat was at Sheffield United, which didn't really affect me in the slightest, and the last man to score against us on our travels was Jon Fucking Stead.
I believe I may have commented on this in the past.
This is a reflection of the way in which Curbishley now has us playing. We simply make up for our lack of ingenuity by running everywhere extremely fast. It was noticeable during this game that we broke with a speed and purpose that Reading were completely incapable of dealing with.
Let's face it, if Carlton Cole comes on and looks dangerous then something somewhere is working.
At home we remain dullards. Life is a many splintered thing.
8. I See Your Ludicrous Miss And I Raise You This Mind Boggling Squander!
In my Birmingham report I referred to the ongoing competition between our players to see who could muster the most ridiculous miss of the game. Kieron Dyer won that particular battle by cleverly impersonating Darius Vassell when the moment arose and royally botching the chance.
This time around it was Lee Bowyer emerging triumphant after a wonderful pass from Bellamy set him free. As he bore down on goal our Lee switched it on to his less favoured left foot and calmly hit an innocent spectator in the crowd.
Ever the chirpy man manager, Curbishley later said : "I could have throttled him", which at the very least shows a decent understanding of how most football fans view Lee Bowyer.
9. That Old Chesnut
Whilst we're on the topic of West Ham away nuances, I was amazed to see that not only did we take the lead in this game but we actually added to it. This is not really the done thing so we did try and redress the balance by conceding a 75th minute penalty, as Robert Green moved so slowly off his line that he managed to allow the glacial Dave Kitson to beat him to the ball.
This was ideal West Ham timing as it would have allowed the supporters a full 15 minutes in which to wear away the lining of our livers as we clung on to our slender lead. Rather heroically Green then redeemed himself by saving both the resultant spot kick from Doyle, and my stomach lining.
This shocked the Reading back four to such an extent that they all spontaneously combusted, allowing Cole and Etherington to combine for our last minute third. Yowzah.
10. Kudos
Our second goal was a thing of beauty. Mullins to Etherington to Bellamy to Etherington to the roof of the net. Sure, the Reading defence at this point consisted mostly of weak legal arguments but I don't care. That was a very nice passage of play.
A word also for our defence who are, whisper it, looking solid. I'm not going any further with that as the last time I praised our back four they allowed Jon Fucking Stead to score against them......
As Kevin McCabe has doubtlessly never said - "There's nowt so esoteric as folk".
I cannot even begin to comprehend how a team can play so abjectly when faced with a moderately well organised Wigan side, and then transform into 1950's Honved at the sight of a decent, if no longer surprising, Reading outfit.
My preview for this game wasn't exactly chipper, even by H List standards, but I think there were very few Hammers out there who fancied us for this one.
Playing at a venue with a tendency to turn our players into blancmange, and again missing several new signings it was even easier than usual to be pessimistic about our chances. Inspired, however, by a fantastic performance from Craig Bellamy we chewed up Reading, rolled them around inside our mouth, got some stuck in our braces and spat them out.
And Matthew Etherington scored. Twice!
*Goes for a lie down*
2. An Admission Of Guilt
It is certainly true that on various occasions during the life of this blog I have perhaps been a little bit unkind to Craig Bellamy.
Craig, let's put our petty squabbling behind us and just forget about who may or may not have called the other one a goblin. You just continue playing like a demi-god and I'll keep my literary barbs aimed in other directions.
3. The Statistics
For a three goal drubbing the statistics of this game are somewhat skewed. By that I mean we battered the home side whilst having just 46% of the possession. This in itself isn't an unnecessarily unfair reflection as Reading did have a decent amount of the ball, but were simply anaemic in using it.
In all we had 14 attempts on goal, abandoning our usual blunderbuss approach and getting a hitherto unprecedented 10 (Ten I say!) on target. Reading, by contrast, mustered just three goal bound efforts and found Robert Green in a decidedly "Thou Shalt Not Pass" kind of mood.
4. The Opposition
It's not hard to imagine that Reading might be heading for something of a fall this year. Steve Sidwell has gone off to the Chelsea bench and Nicky Shorey seems destined to join our injury list in January. With no notable improvement in their squad over the summer, and a glaring lack of joie de vivre about their play, it does rather feel that they have stood still in comparison to the rest of the league.
Come the end of the year it is still likely that this result will be seen as a startling one, but in general it's easy to see Reading falling away somewhat this season.
Evidence for the prosecution, Exhibit A:
During the second half Reading's back 4 did a very passable impression of a large expanse of empty grass.
5. The Referee
Howard Webb. Usually performs inconsistently. Did OK. Gave Reading a penalty which was perfectly correct. Okey Dokey.
6. Into The Ether
During a conversation with a friend recently I discovered that the classic novel "The Catcher In The Rye" is about suicide. I have to confess I missed this, thinking as I did that it was about truancy. For you see, rather like the Arctic Ocean I am wide but I am not very deep.
So, when Matthew Etherington attributes his improved play this year to his lack of gambling I rather shrug my shoulders. I'm not disputing that it may be true, but I'm also not going to get all that excited about a player admitting that the reason he was execrable during one of our worst ever seasons was because he was more interested in the 3.10 at Goodwood than he was in practising his free kicks.
As far as I'm concerned Etherington owes us a season and to be fair, he is delivering so far, albeit in a ridiculously small sample size.
I would even go far as to state that a good season for Etherington will equal a good season for West Ham, if only because it will likely mean Less Luis Boa Morte.
Kudos as well on not turning into a newt when faced with a one on one with the keeper. This is a pleasing new development.
7. Away Day Blues?
Are we money away from home or what? We have now won 4 consecutive away games without conceding a goal (Reading, Birmingham, Man Utd, Wigan) and 6 of the last 7 (Arsenal, Blackburn). Our solitary defeat was at Sheffield United, which didn't really affect me in the slightest, and the last man to score against us on our travels was Jon Fucking Stead.
I believe I may have commented on this in the past.
This is a reflection of the way in which Curbishley now has us playing. We simply make up for our lack of ingenuity by running everywhere extremely fast. It was noticeable during this game that we broke with a speed and purpose that Reading were completely incapable of dealing with.
Let's face it, if Carlton Cole comes on and looks dangerous then something somewhere is working.
At home we remain dullards. Life is a many splintered thing.
8. I See Your Ludicrous Miss And I Raise You This Mind Boggling Squander!
In my Birmingham report I referred to the ongoing competition between our players to see who could muster the most ridiculous miss of the game. Kieron Dyer won that particular battle by cleverly impersonating Darius Vassell when the moment arose and royally botching the chance.
This time around it was Lee Bowyer emerging triumphant after a wonderful pass from Bellamy set him free. As he bore down on goal our Lee switched it on to his less favoured left foot and calmly hit an innocent spectator in the crowd.
Ever the chirpy man manager, Curbishley later said : "I could have throttled him", which at the very least shows a decent understanding of how most football fans view Lee Bowyer.
9. That Old Chesnut
Whilst we're on the topic of West Ham away nuances, I was amazed to see that not only did we take the lead in this game but we actually added to it. This is not really the done thing so we did try and redress the balance by conceding a 75th minute penalty, as Robert Green moved so slowly off his line that he managed to allow the glacial Dave Kitson to beat him to the ball.
This was ideal West Ham timing as it would have allowed the supporters a full 15 minutes in which to wear away the lining of our livers as we clung on to our slender lead. Rather heroically Green then redeemed himself by saving both the resultant spot kick from Doyle, and my stomach lining.
This shocked the Reading back four to such an extent that they all spontaneously combusted, allowing Cole and Etherington to combine for our last minute third. Yowzah.
10. Kudos
Our second goal was a thing of beauty. Mullins to Etherington to Bellamy to Etherington to the roof of the net. Sure, the Reading defence at this point consisted mostly of weak legal arguments but I don't care. That was a very nice passage of play.
A word also for our defence who are, whisper it, looking solid. I'm not going any further with that as the last time I praised our back four they allowed Jon Fucking Stead to score against them......
Friday, August 31, 2007
Reading vs West Ham: 1st September 2007 (Match Preview And Other Ramblings)
1. Have We Met Before?
If you're a West Ham fan then it's probably reasonable to suppose that the only decent experience you have ever had of Reading is leaving the place. For a team we have only ever played 4 times away from home it's somewhat incredible that they have managed to inflict quite so much pain on us.
I mean, we haven't won at Liverpool since the Plantagenet Dynasty but even then I can muster up a flicker of optimism for our visits.
On the other hand, whenever we venture down the M4 I'm just hoping that we can keep it respectable.
For the love of God - John Oster plays for them.
2. The History
Needless to say then, our statistics against Reading make for grim reading. Not "grim" like a Victorian thriller, but "grim" like a autopsy report. We have only played Reading six times and have lost four games. Not just ordinary defeats by the way, but truly Bad News Bears type massacres.
Last year we turned in a plucky little display at the Madjeski stadium losing a six goal thriller on New Years Day. Closer examination reveals that we were 4 down within 35 minutes and 5 down after 53 minutes. Sit back and consider just how Sunderlandic that really is. Attendance at this game should come with a health warning.
Prior visits yielded truly abysmal 3-1 and 2-0 defeats, although compared to last years showing they look like halfway decent performances.
A little tip, painting your eyes with Satinwood Dulux will ensure that you cannot see the carnage, but may have some side effects. Like blindness.
3. The Opposition
Reading must be pretty fed up by now as being described as "the new West Ham" given that they have shown no signs at all of descending into the realms of Shakespearean farce. There is much to respect about Reading as a club. Steve Coppell has done a marvellous job with the sows ear he inherited from Pardew, and has instilled a collective work rate that is a wonder to behold.
Again, I state that John Oster plays for them.
(Not that beating us last year required work rate, so much as "the ability to breathe unaided").
Players such as Kevin Doyle, Shane Long and Stephen Hunt have been plucked from obscurity in the Irish leagues and look every inch Premiership players, whilst Brynjar Gunnarsson looks every inch a Bond villain.
They've got to sort out those supporters though. There's only so much happy clappy joy joy stuff a man can take.
4. Well That Was A Let Down
My dedication to you all, and my incessant tardiness means that I'm writing this after the close of the transfer deadline so by now I am able to tell you who we will be adding to our injury list on Monday. Nolberto Solano and Henri Camara will be joining, which really should be illegal when the club have made an official statement to say that they are in negotiations for Adriano. That's a heroin like come down.
If I was Nobby Solano coming to fill in on our right wing I think I'd be feeling a bit like Indiana Jones in "The Last Crusade", walking up to take the final tests and seeing the decapitated bodies of his predecessors lying strewn on the floor around him.
Henri Camara was quite the surprise seeing as no media outlets picked up on it at all, and he's rubbish. It smacks of a panic buy to be picking up Wigan reserves on deadline night, particularly given that if we really needed an inconsistent, occasionally brilliant forward we could have just held on to Marlon Harewood.
I can't be the only one feeling a little deflated at the apparent lack of foresight in our transfer planning though. It rather smacks of the same old West Ham to be linked with Bent, Adriano, Gudjohnsen, Anelka and Johnson, only to end up with Henri Camara as your wonderful new striking option.
We've also been comprehensively outspent by Fulham. Fulham I tell you.
Mind you, given who they've spent it on I am able to temper my jealousy somewhat.
5. The Ashton Effect
Games started by Dean Ashton: 14
Number of those games to end in defeats: 2* (Man Utd (a), Chelsea (a))
* I will never count the FA Cup Final as a defeat.
I'm still not convinced that throwing an unfit player into the mix is the immediate answer to our problems but I'm just pointing out that he's got a bit of previous.
6. The Zamora Effect
Bobby Zamora has never scored for us against Reading. Hang on, that's not an effect. That could very well be a cause though.....
If you're a West Ham fan then it's probably reasonable to suppose that the only decent experience you have ever had of Reading is leaving the place. For a team we have only ever played 4 times away from home it's somewhat incredible that they have managed to inflict quite so much pain on us.
I mean, we haven't won at Liverpool since the Plantagenet Dynasty but even then I can muster up a flicker of optimism for our visits.
On the other hand, whenever we venture down the M4 I'm just hoping that we can keep it respectable.
For the love of God - John Oster plays for them.
2. The History
Needless to say then, our statistics against Reading make for grim reading. Not "grim" like a Victorian thriller, but "grim" like a autopsy report. We have only played Reading six times and have lost four games. Not just ordinary defeats by the way, but truly Bad News Bears type massacres.
Last year we turned in a plucky little display at the Madjeski stadium losing a six goal thriller on New Years Day. Closer examination reveals that we were 4 down within 35 minutes and 5 down after 53 minutes. Sit back and consider just how Sunderlandic that really is. Attendance at this game should come with a health warning.
Prior visits yielded truly abysmal 3-1 and 2-0 defeats, although compared to last years showing they look like halfway decent performances.
A little tip, painting your eyes with Satinwood Dulux will ensure that you cannot see the carnage, but may have some side effects. Like blindness.
3. The Opposition
Reading must be pretty fed up by now as being described as "the new West Ham" given that they have shown no signs at all of descending into the realms of Shakespearean farce. There is much to respect about Reading as a club. Steve Coppell has done a marvellous job with the sows ear he inherited from Pardew, and has instilled a collective work rate that is a wonder to behold.
Again, I state that John Oster plays for them.
(Not that beating us last year required work rate, so much as "the ability to breathe unaided").
Players such as Kevin Doyle, Shane Long and Stephen Hunt have been plucked from obscurity in the Irish leagues and look every inch Premiership players, whilst Brynjar Gunnarsson looks every inch a Bond villain.
They've got to sort out those supporters though. There's only so much happy clappy joy joy stuff a man can take.
4. Well That Was A Let Down
My dedication to you all, and my incessant tardiness means that I'm writing this after the close of the transfer deadline so by now I am able to tell you who we will be adding to our injury list on Monday. Nolberto Solano and Henri Camara will be joining, which really should be illegal when the club have made an official statement to say that they are in negotiations for Adriano. That's a heroin like come down.
If I was Nobby Solano coming to fill in on our right wing I think I'd be feeling a bit like Indiana Jones in "The Last Crusade", walking up to take the final tests and seeing the decapitated bodies of his predecessors lying strewn on the floor around him.
Henri Camara was quite the surprise seeing as no media outlets picked up on it at all, and he's rubbish. It smacks of a panic buy to be picking up Wigan reserves on deadline night, particularly given that if we really needed an inconsistent, occasionally brilliant forward we could have just held on to Marlon Harewood.
I can't be the only one feeling a little deflated at the apparent lack of foresight in our transfer planning though. It rather smacks of the same old West Ham to be linked with Bent, Adriano, Gudjohnsen, Anelka and Johnson, only to end up with Henri Camara as your wonderful new striking option.
We've also been comprehensively outspent by Fulham. Fulham I tell you.
Mind you, given who they've spent it on I am able to temper my jealousy somewhat.
5. The Ashton Effect
Games started by Dean Ashton: 14
Number of those games to end in defeats: 2* (Man Utd (a), Chelsea (a))
* I will never count the FA Cup Final as a defeat.
I'm still not convinced that throwing an unfit player into the mix is the immediate answer to our problems but I'm just pointing out that he's got a bit of previous.
6. The Zamora Effect
Bobby Zamora has never scored for us against Reading. Hang on, that's not an effect. That could very well be a cause though.....
Monday, August 27, 2007
West Ham 1 - 1 Wigan Athletic (And Other Ramblings)
West Ham (Bowyer 81) 1 - 1 Wigan (Scharner 78)
Attendance - 33,793
1. Well, That Wasn't Fun
In the end, this was probably a fair result. Fair in the sense that we were fairly poor, Wigan were fairly poor, the weather was set fair and I'm fairly sure that this was the worst Premiership game of the weekend.
Which is quite a statement when you consider that Aston Villa played Fulham in some sort of World Championship of Mediocrity.
OK, now let's be reasonable. This wasn't quite as egregious a display as the Man City game (although to be honest it would have required a mass outbreak of syphilis for it to have been worse than that) but this still wasn't exactly sparkling.
One can praise Wigan, one can criticise our midfield, one can even call Dave Whelan a gutless wonder but none of these things will change the bare fact that we have accrued just 4 points from a start to the season that really should have yielded more.
2. I Ain't Saying You're Dull But...
There was a curious sequence of events after about half an hour of this game:
The ball was blasted high and wide into the Wigan section of the stand. It was picked up by a policeman (who outnumbered the Wigan fans significantly). The policeman then attempted to throw the ball back on to the pitch but only succeeded in hitting a fellow officer and knocking his helmet off.
This was by some distance the most entertaining moment of the first half.
3. The Statistics
Our possession count was as high as 62% according to Match of the Day, which is probably a pretty accurate reflection of our territorial dominance, if not truly indicative of who was creating the better chances.
Our shot count was up at 16, but with just a Middlesbroughian 4 on target. Mark Noble, in particular, was guilty of wastefulness as he had 6 attempts, of which just one drew a save. He also reverted back to the West Ham default position of blasting any and all free kicks aimlessly into the stratosphere.
Elsewhere, Bobby Zamora committed three fouls to take the lead in the Premiership foul race with his 14th (!) of the season so far. At this point I'm wondering if we shouldn't just change his name to "Bobby Zamora : 2006/07 Version". On the face of it that seems like a ridiculous suggestion but then Bobby has been putting in some fairly ridiculous performances lately
4. The Opposition
Wigan began this game with some truly weird positional decisions. Jason Koumas, their best player, was marooned out on the left side of midfield, whilst behind him they opted for Kevin Kilbane as the titular left back.
I say that because, as a full back, Kevin Kilbane makes a darn good crash test dummy.
They began the game with just one up front, displaying a limited set of ambitions and with the dial firmly turned to "boredom". Some Wigan fans might argue that they actually started with a pair of strikers, but my retort to this would be that when the men in question are Antoine Sibierski and Emile Heskey then there is actually a pretty strong argument that you are in fact playing no strikers at all, so let's move on.
All in all Wigan turned in a decent enough away performance. They were well organised and when Koumas and Melchiot had possession they looked a reasonable enough side. Once they took the lead it seemed as though the game was up, although I have to confess that I didn't believe the Universe would allow a defence containing Titus Bramble and Kilbane to keep a clean sheet.
I mean, sure, strange things are happening around the globe at the moment, but there is such a thing as natural law.
5. The Referee
There was really only one decision to be made in this game, which was whether or not to award a penalty for Anders Granqvist's attempt at a reverse suplex on Mark Noble. It looked fairly clear cut to me but then I'm biased.
Either way, convicted price fixer Dave Whelan is a coward.
6. Kudos
I might be high on opium but there are some things that I really need to say in this section.
Luis Boa Morte was, like, really quite good when he came on, man. In fact, he made more of an impression than Ashton, and it was he who set up Lee Bowyer for the equaliser with a perfectly weighted pass rather than his customary perfectly weighted falling on his arse.
Bowyer too deserves credit for his first goal in West Ham colours. It involved a lung bursting run (impressive), a neat finish (impressive) and outwitting Kevin Kilbane (2 out of 3 ain't bad). He celebrated by getting really, really angry. I am not surprised by this.
Curbishley probably deserves some praise too, given that it was the substitutes who made the biggest impact on the game. That said, his decision to swap Dyer in to the middle to accommodate Bowyer reduced the former to the role of bemused onlooker.
7. The No Show
So convicted price fixer Dave Whelan didn't make it to the game. I could refer to this as cowardice or insouciance, embarrassment or ego but either way I doubt he cares too much. He made a great deal of noise up until the Tevez affair no longer affected him, at which point he gave up and left Sheffield United to it. What a man.
Interestingly he also didn't bother to attend the AGM of the Premier League after the end of the season. Which is curious given that he was so intent on launching that campaign for fairness in football.
And let me tell you right here and now, anyone alleging that Dave Whelan clubs baby seals to death with frozen Swiss Rolls, solely so that he can lob them at passing schoolchildren from his nuclear powered chariot is just flat out lying.
8. The Return Of The King
Lucas Neill was back to skipper the side this week, and although he made a good early impression by being Not Jonathan Spector, he made less of an impression by not tackling Koumas very often.
Now let's not be churlish here. He is still an otherworldly being and is clearly of celestial lineage, but it probably wouldn't hurt for him to get some more matches under his belt as there was no question he looked a bit rusty.
He remains my favourite Australian (not a difficult task it has to be said - just don't be Hugh Jackman).
8. The Midweek Blues - Bristol Rovers 1 - 2 West Ham
More observant readers will have noticed that I didn't manage a preview for the Bristol Rovers cup tie. This is primarily because upon my return from an extended business trip, Mrs Shark greeted me at the door with a pair of secateurs and the immortal line "Hey honey, it sure is swell to see you again. Can you sort out our garden - I think a family of Komodo Dragons have moved into the undergrowth by our daughters playhouse"
All in all, our trip to the Recreation Ground went about as well as these early Cup games usually do. We managed to upset the form book and actually win the game, but this was overshadowed by a horrific injury to Kieron Dyer. Our pre season decision to evict those Gypsies and prosecute those Druids looks evermore foolish as the curse of our new signings continues.
A pretty nasty tackle from something called a "Joe Jacobson" did the trick as he caught an off balance Dyer on the shin and fractured both leg bones. It appears to be a complicated and severe injury that is likely to keep him out for the rest of the season.
It has to be said that at times I don't really blame Curbishley for looking like a man on Death Row.
9. Hells Bells!
On a brighter note Craig Bellamy got off the mark in style. His first goal was a belting 25 yard drive, although fear not, I'm sure we'll beat that out of him soon enough. His second owed more to some truly atrocious defending than it did to good football, but he took the chance well enough and managed not to get arrested in the process.
Elsewhere Bobby Zamora continues to look short of confidence and there is little doubt that he could do with a goal. I would persevere with him still, simply because Ashton doesn't look fit enough, and Carlton Cole is, well, Carlton Cole. As our next game is away at Reading I'd be tempted to play him for the simple reason that it's away from Upton Park. He looked far better at Birmingham when he didn't have the entire stadium howling for Ashton at every opportunity.
10. The Secret Diary Of Adriano Mole
Aug 28 (am) - Received interesting offer from West Ham. Am mulling it over.
Aug 28 (pm) - Look up West Ham. They are in England apparently.
Aug 29 (am) - Compare relative merits of Milan and Collier Row.
Aug 29 (pm) - Sack my agent
I'll talk more about this in the Reading preview but I'm officially sceptical. Let's leave it at that for the moment......
Attendance - 33,793
1. Well, That Wasn't Fun
In the end, this was probably a fair result. Fair in the sense that we were fairly poor, Wigan were fairly poor, the weather was set fair and I'm fairly sure that this was the worst Premiership game of the weekend.
Which is quite a statement when you consider that Aston Villa played Fulham in some sort of World Championship of Mediocrity.
OK, now let's be reasonable. This wasn't quite as egregious a display as the Man City game (although to be honest it would have required a mass outbreak of syphilis for it to have been worse than that) but this still wasn't exactly sparkling.
One can praise Wigan, one can criticise our midfield, one can even call Dave Whelan a gutless wonder but none of these things will change the bare fact that we have accrued just 4 points from a start to the season that really should have yielded more.
2. I Ain't Saying You're Dull But...
There was a curious sequence of events after about half an hour of this game:
The ball was blasted high and wide into the Wigan section of the stand. It was picked up by a policeman (who outnumbered the Wigan fans significantly). The policeman then attempted to throw the ball back on to the pitch but only succeeded in hitting a fellow officer and knocking his helmet off.
This was by some distance the most entertaining moment of the first half.
3. The Statistics
Our possession count was as high as 62% according to Match of the Day, which is probably a pretty accurate reflection of our territorial dominance, if not truly indicative of who was creating the better chances.
Our shot count was up at 16, but with just a Middlesbroughian 4 on target. Mark Noble, in particular, was guilty of wastefulness as he had 6 attempts, of which just one drew a save. He also reverted back to the West Ham default position of blasting any and all free kicks aimlessly into the stratosphere.
Elsewhere, Bobby Zamora committed three fouls to take the lead in the Premiership foul race with his 14th (!) of the season so far. At this point I'm wondering if we shouldn't just change his name to "Bobby Zamora : 2006/07 Version". On the face of it that seems like a ridiculous suggestion but then Bobby has been putting in some fairly ridiculous performances lately
4. The Opposition
Wigan began this game with some truly weird positional decisions. Jason Koumas, their best player, was marooned out on the left side of midfield, whilst behind him they opted for Kevin Kilbane as the titular left back.
I say that because, as a full back, Kevin Kilbane makes a darn good crash test dummy.
They began the game with just one up front, displaying a limited set of ambitions and with the dial firmly turned to "boredom". Some Wigan fans might argue that they actually started with a pair of strikers, but my retort to this would be that when the men in question are Antoine Sibierski and Emile Heskey then there is actually a pretty strong argument that you are in fact playing no strikers at all, so let's move on.
All in all Wigan turned in a decent enough away performance. They were well organised and when Koumas and Melchiot had possession they looked a reasonable enough side. Once they took the lead it seemed as though the game was up, although I have to confess that I didn't believe the Universe would allow a defence containing Titus Bramble and Kilbane to keep a clean sheet.
I mean, sure, strange things are happening around the globe at the moment, but there is such a thing as natural law.
5. The Referee
There was really only one decision to be made in this game, which was whether or not to award a penalty for Anders Granqvist's attempt at a reverse suplex on Mark Noble. It looked fairly clear cut to me but then I'm biased.
Either way, convicted price fixer Dave Whelan is a coward.
6. Kudos
I might be high on opium but there are some things that I really need to say in this section.
Luis Boa Morte was, like, really quite good when he came on, man. In fact, he made more of an impression than Ashton, and it was he who set up Lee Bowyer for the equaliser with a perfectly weighted pass rather than his customary perfectly weighted falling on his arse.
Bowyer too deserves credit for his first goal in West Ham colours. It involved a lung bursting run (impressive), a neat finish (impressive) and outwitting Kevin Kilbane (2 out of 3 ain't bad). He celebrated by getting really, really angry. I am not surprised by this.
Curbishley probably deserves some praise too, given that it was the substitutes who made the biggest impact on the game. That said, his decision to swap Dyer in to the middle to accommodate Bowyer reduced the former to the role of bemused onlooker.
7. The No Show
So convicted price fixer Dave Whelan didn't make it to the game. I could refer to this as cowardice or insouciance, embarrassment or ego but either way I doubt he cares too much. He made a great deal of noise up until the Tevez affair no longer affected him, at which point he gave up and left Sheffield United to it. What a man.
Interestingly he also didn't bother to attend the AGM of the Premier League after the end of the season. Which is curious given that he was so intent on launching that campaign for fairness in football.
And let me tell you right here and now, anyone alleging that Dave Whelan clubs baby seals to death with frozen Swiss Rolls, solely so that he can lob them at passing schoolchildren from his nuclear powered chariot is just flat out lying.
8. The Return Of The King
Lucas Neill was back to skipper the side this week, and although he made a good early impression by being Not Jonathan Spector, he made less of an impression by not tackling Koumas very often.
Now let's not be churlish here. He is still an otherworldly being and is clearly of celestial lineage, but it probably wouldn't hurt for him to get some more matches under his belt as there was no question he looked a bit rusty.
He remains my favourite Australian (not a difficult task it has to be said - just don't be Hugh Jackman).
8. The Midweek Blues - Bristol Rovers 1 - 2 West Ham
More observant readers will have noticed that I didn't manage a preview for the Bristol Rovers cup tie. This is primarily because upon my return from an extended business trip, Mrs Shark greeted me at the door with a pair of secateurs and the immortal line "Hey honey, it sure is swell to see you again. Can you sort out our garden - I think a family of Komodo Dragons have moved into the undergrowth by our daughters playhouse"
All in all, our trip to the Recreation Ground went about as well as these early Cup games usually do. We managed to upset the form book and actually win the game, but this was overshadowed by a horrific injury to Kieron Dyer. Our pre season decision to evict those Gypsies and prosecute those Druids looks evermore foolish as the curse of our new signings continues.
A pretty nasty tackle from something called a "Joe Jacobson" did the trick as he caught an off balance Dyer on the shin and fractured both leg bones. It appears to be a complicated and severe injury that is likely to keep him out for the rest of the season.
It has to be said that at times I don't really blame Curbishley for looking like a man on Death Row.
9. Hells Bells!
On a brighter note Craig Bellamy got off the mark in style. His first goal was a belting 25 yard drive, although fear not, I'm sure we'll beat that out of him soon enough. His second owed more to some truly atrocious defending than it did to good football, but he took the chance well enough and managed not to get arrested in the process.
Elsewhere Bobby Zamora continues to look short of confidence and there is little doubt that he could do with a goal. I would persevere with him still, simply because Ashton doesn't look fit enough, and Carlton Cole is, well, Carlton Cole. As our next game is away at Reading I'd be tempted to play him for the simple reason that it's away from Upton Park. He looked far better at Birmingham when he didn't have the entire stadium howling for Ashton at every opportunity.
10. The Secret Diary Of Adriano Mole
Aug 28 (am) - Received interesting offer from West Ham. Am mulling it over.
Aug 28 (pm) - Look up West Ham. They are in England apparently.
Aug 29 (am) - Compare relative merits of Milan and Collier Row.
Aug 29 (pm) - Sack my agent
I'll talk more about this in the Reading preview but I'm officially sceptical. Let's leave it at that for the moment......
Saturday, August 25, 2007
West Ham vs Wigan Athletic: 25th August 2007 (Match Preview And Other Ramblings)
1. Apologies
This preview had to be abandoned due to jet lag. Sincere apologies to my worldwide legion of fans (both of you) but I promise to return with a top quality update for the match itself, containing much abuse of Dave Whelan.
2. In Brief
We win at their place. They win at our place. Marlon Harewood always scores. Ah.
3. A Point Of Interest
Wigan successfully converted more penalties in their last game than we did in our last Premiership season.
4. "I Wrote A Song For You......And It Was Called 'Yellow'"
Convicted Price Fixer Dave Whelan cannot attend today's game due to a number of reasons. His liver has apparently taken on several properties commonly associated with the lily, and his stomach has turned a nasty shade of yellow. The varmint.
Doctors are calling this "Cowardis Extremis".
It's either this or he's a bit skint having had to pay a large fine due to the fact that the Wigan rugby league club, of which he is owner, deliberately breached the league salary cap.
Remember Dave's "Campaign For Fairness"? Doctors are calling this "Hypocrisia Breathtakinium".
Still, at least he stood shoulder to shoulder with Sheffield United like he promised......
This preview had to be abandoned due to jet lag. Sincere apologies to my worldwide legion of fans (both of you) but I promise to return with a top quality update for the match itself, containing much abuse of Dave Whelan.
2. In Brief
We win at their place. They win at our place. Marlon Harewood always scores. Ah.
3. A Point Of Interest
Wigan successfully converted more penalties in their last game than we did in our last Premiership season.
4. "I Wrote A Song For You......And It Was Called 'Yellow'"
Convicted Price Fixer Dave Whelan cannot attend today's game due to a number of reasons. His liver has apparently taken on several properties commonly associated with the lily, and his stomach has turned a nasty shade of yellow. The varmint.
Doctors are calling this "Cowardis Extremis".
It's either this or he's a bit skint having had to pay a large fine due to the fact that the Wigan rugby league club, of which he is owner, deliberately breached the league salary cap.
Remember Dave's "Campaign For Fairness"? Doctors are calling this "Hypocrisia Breathtakinium".
Still, at least he stood shoulder to shoulder with Sheffield United like he promised......
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Birmingham City 0 - 1 West Ham (And Other Reasons To Love Mark Noble)
Birmingham City 0 - 1 West Ham (Noble - 70 (Pen))
Attendance - 24,961
1. How To Make A Comfortable Victory Thoroughly Uncomfortable
Hey! Where are my fingernails?
2. Easy Redefinded
I don't quite know where to begin in analysing this victory. Now let's not forget - it was a victory and for that we should all be deliriously happy. I don't think I shall begin with that first half which was a truly marvellous advertisement for golf.
The second period saw us sweeping forward in waves and battering the home side. Mark Noble and Matthew Etherington in particular were outstanding as we continually penned the home side back until they finally buckled.
It should be noted that we required an almost heroic level of hopelessness in order to still be deadlocked by the time that Noble finally opened the scoring on 70 minutes. If I didn't know better I'd suggest that our front players were involved in some sort of competition to see who could manage the most ridiculous miss. Zamora and Bellamy both made sterling attempts but Kieron Dyer comfortably won with his last minute butchering of a gilt edged opportunity. More on that later as it really deserves further analysis.
On the plus side, we outplayed a Premiership team without Ljungberg, Neill, Ashton and Parker.
3. The Statistics
For this game at least the statistics do a pretty good job of reflecting the balance of power. ESPN's Gamecast (http://soccernet-akamai.espn.go.com/match?id=219074&cc=5739) shows us having a 53% slice of the possession and a 15 to 7 advantage in terms of shots at goal. Under no circumstances should this be considered as anything other than a battering. With the exception of a late first half effort that was smartly saved by Green, I can't recall the home side threatening us in any way other than via Gary O'Connor's elbows.
Of our 15 shots we mustered just 5 on target, which is the type of conversion ratio that gets missionaries fired. Bobby Zamora managed 3 attempts himself, of which none were on target at all, reinforcing my belief that the genius of Carlos Tevez wasn't just restricted to getting the best out of himself.
4. The Opposition
I'm wary of getting too medieval on Birmingham's ass, given that one swallow does not make a summer. That said, they were appalling. Devoid (devoid, I say) of creativity and reliant solely upon our worrying propensity for conceding needless fouls. Indeed we managed to make no less than 15 fouls during this game which would have been impressive but for the fact that City managed to give up 16.
That sure is some brainless tackling.
It is a pet peeve of mine that when we play teams such as Birmingham, whose sole ploy for attacking our goal is to win free kicks in areas where they can hit our box, that we continue to commit horrendously stupid fouls.
For God's sake - when Gary O'Connor has the ball miles from our goal - LEAVE HIM ALONE. Let him try and shoot - no, encourage him to try and shoot. He's Gary O'Connor! He aspires to uselesness! There is a word for defending like this and that word is Pfft.
4a. The Opposition Manager
I never normally do this but I seriously despise Steve Bruce. He pulled a typically beautiful piece of Brucist philosophy by conducting his entire post match interview with a lemon in his mouth. He began by claiming that he didn't blame Bellamy for the penalty and then spent the rest of the time making snide comments about the incident.
All of which ignores the rather pertinent fact that a foul comitted anywhere within the 22 yard box is a penalty irrespective of the location of the ball, the intent of the defender, slumping global markets or unpredictable weather patterns. In addition, Bruce also managed to forget the first half foul on Dyer that was denied, presumably because at some point Kieron had made inappropriate advances to the referees daughter.
Steve, may all your Christmases be shite.
5. The Referee
Mark Halsey was a busy fellow, allowing a shocking tackle from Mehdi Nafti to pass unpunished after barely a minute, booking Hayden Mullins for some shirt pulling two minutes later and then awarding a foul every other challenge for the rest of the game.
Missed the foul on Dyer in the first half and made up for it by giving us one later after Bellamy ran fully thirty yards to induce the most pointless challenge ever from City keeper Colin Doyle. Or at least it was until Jonathan Spector then tried to tackle Gary McSheffrey using only his backside.
6. He Wasn't That Dyer
Kieron Dyer had a mixed sort of debut. For the first 5 minutes he stood on our right wing looking cold before he came inside a bit and, well, looked a bit colder. He was unceremoniously hauled to the floor by Stephen Kelly after 16 minutes which should have led to a penalty but didn't. He then spent the rest of the half fitting right in by constantly giving the ball away.
His second half perfomance was much better and his pace and movement added a splendid new dimension to our attacking. According to the rather tremendous stats filter at the end of this report in The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/08/19/sfgbir119.xml), he didn't receive a pass from anyone other than Spector in the game. I must say, he was fairly isolated as we tended to go through our left hand side, but even this seems ridiculous to me.
He had a glorious late chance to seal the game but had obviously read the West Ham handbook (Rule 13a: Thou shalt never make a game safe by accruing anything more than a one goal lead) and made a complete hash of it. To papraphrase a previous H Listism, this doesn't make him a bad player, it just makes him a West Ham player.
If he stays fit he'll be fine. If he doesn't nobody is going to be very shocked.
7. Department Of The Obvious
Mark Noble was our man of the match. In the same way that Luke Skywalker was "quite key" in bringing down the Galactic Empire. Quite apart from his coolly taken penalty he was easliy our best player, hitting the post with a free kick and generally making his more senior colleagues look a bit work shy.
I want....hmm what's the word I'm looking for? Yes, that's it - more.
8. They Did What?
Two curious moments in the first half. We took not one, but two, consecutive good free kicks. Firstly Noble hit the post from nary 30 yards, and then he and Zamora pulled off a very well worked routine that nearly snuck Bellamy in at the near post.
Noble's effort wasn't actually "good" in the sense that it was struck straight at the wall but they rather nambily jumped out of the way and allowed it through to hit the woodwork. Still, it's a West Ham free kick so the standards are fairly low.
After this brief foray into competence we quickly returned to uselesness but hey, it was nice while it lasted.
9. Kudos
Some particular praise should be reserved for Matt Upson who endured a moderate booing and played pretty well in the meantime. No praise should be reserved for Jonathan Spector who did a passable impression of a kebab.
Craig Bellamy showed exactly why we were interested in him. He runs constantly, doesn't finish as well as he should and argues for every decision. What's not to like? (Apart from the finishing and the whinging).
10. Of Note
Succesful West Ham penalties (06/07) - 1
Succesful West Ham penalties (07/08) - 1
I'm just saying.
11. A Clarification
I had a question last week about the lack of slaughtering for Michael Dawson. In short, I've given that up. I'm sure that even Trojan Donkeys have feelings and in fairness, he's not even playing at the moment. Broken hoof, probably.....
Attendance - 24,961
1. How To Make A Comfortable Victory Thoroughly Uncomfortable
Hey! Where are my fingernails?
2. Easy Redefinded
I don't quite know where to begin in analysing this victory. Now let's not forget - it was a victory and for that we should all be deliriously happy. I don't think I shall begin with that first half which was a truly marvellous advertisement for golf.
The second period saw us sweeping forward in waves and battering the home side. Mark Noble and Matthew Etherington in particular were outstanding as we continually penned the home side back until they finally buckled.
It should be noted that we required an almost heroic level of hopelessness in order to still be deadlocked by the time that Noble finally opened the scoring on 70 minutes. If I didn't know better I'd suggest that our front players were involved in some sort of competition to see who could manage the most ridiculous miss. Zamora and Bellamy both made sterling attempts but Kieron Dyer comfortably won with his last minute butchering of a gilt edged opportunity. More on that later as it really deserves further analysis.
On the plus side, we outplayed a Premiership team without Ljungberg, Neill, Ashton and Parker.
3. The Statistics
For this game at least the statistics do a pretty good job of reflecting the balance of power. ESPN's Gamecast (http://soccernet-akamai.espn.go.com/match?id=219074&cc=5739) shows us having a 53% slice of the possession and a 15 to 7 advantage in terms of shots at goal. Under no circumstances should this be considered as anything other than a battering. With the exception of a late first half effort that was smartly saved by Green, I can't recall the home side threatening us in any way other than via Gary O'Connor's elbows.
Of our 15 shots we mustered just 5 on target, which is the type of conversion ratio that gets missionaries fired. Bobby Zamora managed 3 attempts himself, of which none were on target at all, reinforcing my belief that the genius of Carlos Tevez wasn't just restricted to getting the best out of himself.
4. The Opposition
I'm wary of getting too medieval on Birmingham's ass, given that one swallow does not make a summer. That said, they were appalling. Devoid (devoid, I say) of creativity and reliant solely upon our worrying propensity for conceding needless fouls. Indeed we managed to make no less than 15 fouls during this game which would have been impressive but for the fact that City managed to give up 16.
That sure is some brainless tackling.
It is a pet peeve of mine that when we play teams such as Birmingham, whose sole ploy for attacking our goal is to win free kicks in areas where they can hit our box, that we continue to commit horrendously stupid fouls.
For God's sake - when Gary O'Connor has the ball miles from our goal - LEAVE HIM ALONE. Let him try and shoot - no, encourage him to try and shoot. He's Gary O'Connor! He aspires to uselesness! There is a word for defending like this and that word is Pfft.
4a. The Opposition Manager
I never normally do this but I seriously despise Steve Bruce. He pulled a typically beautiful piece of Brucist philosophy by conducting his entire post match interview with a lemon in his mouth. He began by claiming that he didn't blame Bellamy for the penalty and then spent the rest of the time making snide comments about the incident.
All of which ignores the rather pertinent fact that a foul comitted anywhere within the 22 yard box is a penalty irrespective of the location of the ball, the intent of the defender, slumping global markets or unpredictable weather patterns. In addition, Bruce also managed to forget the first half foul on Dyer that was denied, presumably because at some point Kieron had made inappropriate advances to the referees daughter.
Steve, may all your Christmases be shite.
5. The Referee
Mark Halsey was a busy fellow, allowing a shocking tackle from Mehdi Nafti to pass unpunished after barely a minute, booking Hayden Mullins for some shirt pulling two minutes later and then awarding a foul every other challenge for the rest of the game.
Missed the foul on Dyer in the first half and made up for it by giving us one later after Bellamy ran fully thirty yards to induce the most pointless challenge ever from City keeper Colin Doyle. Or at least it was until Jonathan Spector then tried to tackle Gary McSheffrey using only his backside.
6. He Wasn't That Dyer
Kieron Dyer had a mixed sort of debut. For the first 5 minutes he stood on our right wing looking cold before he came inside a bit and, well, looked a bit colder. He was unceremoniously hauled to the floor by Stephen Kelly after 16 minutes which should have led to a penalty but didn't. He then spent the rest of the half fitting right in by constantly giving the ball away.
His second half perfomance was much better and his pace and movement added a splendid new dimension to our attacking. According to the rather tremendous stats filter at the end of this report in The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/08/19/sfgbir119.xml), he didn't receive a pass from anyone other than Spector in the game. I must say, he was fairly isolated as we tended to go through our left hand side, but even this seems ridiculous to me.
He had a glorious late chance to seal the game but had obviously read the West Ham handbook (Rule 13a: Thou shalt never make a game safe by accruing anything more than a one goal lead) and made a complete hash of it. To papraphrase a previous H Listism, this doesn't make him a bad player, it just makes him a West Ham player.
If he stays fit he'll be fine. If he doesn't nobody is going to be very shocked.
7. Department Of The Obvious
Mark Noble was our man of the match. In the same way that Luke Skywalker was "quite key" in bringing down the Galactic Empire. Quite apart from his coolly taken penalty he was easliy our best player, hitting the post with a free kick and generally making his more senior colleagues look a bit work shy.
I want....hmm what's the word I'm looking for? Yes, that's it - more.
8. They Did What?
Two curious moments in the first half. We took not one, but two, consecutive good free kicks. Firstly Noble hit the post from nary 30 yards, and then he and Zamora pulled off a very well worked routine that nearly snuck Bellamy in at the near post.
Noble's effort wasn't actually "good" in the sense that it was struck straight at the wall but they rather nambily jumped out of the way and allowed it through to hit the woodwork. Still, it's a West Ham free kick so the standards are fairly low.
After this brief foray into competence we quickly returned to uselesness but hey, it was nice while it lasted.
9. Kudos
Some particular praise should be reserved for Matt Upson who endured a moderate booing and played pretty well in the meantime. No praise should be reserved for Jonathan Spector who did a passable impression of a kebab.
Craig Bellamy showed exactly why we were interested in him. He runs constantly, doesn't finish as well as he should and argues for every decision. What's not to like? (Apart from the finishing and the whinging).
10. Of Note
Succesful West Ham penalties (06/07) - 1
Succesful West Ham penalties (07/08) - 1
I'm just saying.
11. A Clarification
I had a question last week about the lack of slaughtering for Michael Dawson. In short, I've given that up. I'm sure that even Trojan Donkeys have feelings and in fairness, he's not even playing at the moment. Broken hoof, probably.....
Friday, August 17, 2007
Birmingham City vs West Ham : 18th August 2007 (Match Preview And Other Ramblings)
1. Things Are Looking Dyer
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the sports section, Alan Curbishley spends £6m on Kieron Dyer. The price is still the same as the originally proposed deal that fell through when Newcastle chairman Mike Ashley upped the price at the last minute. Quite what universe Ashley is operating in escapes me. How is £6m not enough to buy an oft injured trouble maker like Dyer?
Anyway, the new arrival goes into the squad for the trip to Birmingham where he will compete for a place with Lee Bowyer. Hopefully not literally.
2. London Calling
Not content with uniting Bellamy, Bowyer, Dyer and Ferdinand as the Premiership version of The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, Curbishley has decided that this simply isn't enough disruption in one team and apparently now plans to add renowned good egg, Nicolas Anelka to the mix.
Whilst the talent of all of these players is undeniable, it is no secret why they have either moved from one club to another or, in Dyer's case, seen their careers stultify at an unsuccessful club.
The law of averages suggested that Anelka would end up here eventually given his propensity for one year stays, but it's a surprise that Curbishley would try and shoehorn so much potential dissension into the ranks.
Given that we were supposed to have had a summer clearout of the club's troublemakers is anyone else wondering exactly what Nigel Reo Coker and Marlon Harewood were doing last year? Short of selling drugs to Junior Hammers I can't quite imagine what it is that they were up to that could see them be viewed as worse than the players listed above.
Just to jog the memory, Bowyer and Dyer ended up in court for having a fist fight in the middle of St James's Park - during a Premiership game.
Perhaps all of this is indicative of the challenge facing Magnusson and Curbishley. Their statement of intent about being regulars in the Champions League is not quite so easily achieved as simply spending a boatload of cash (see United, Newcastle) and attracting the right players to do this.
At this juncture we appear to be trying to buy those players who are either not quite good enough for the top 4 teams (Parker, Upson) or those who have had issues in staying at one of those bigger clubs (Bellamy, Ljungberg). It's a passable scheme but one that does lay us open to having a team full of lunatics.
3. The Opposition
For the second consecutive year our first away game sees us at a newly promoted team. After an impressive opening day draw at Chelsea, City then managed only a 2-2 draw at home to Sunderland. With no wins thus far, they will be looking to open their account against us and St Andrews should prove a difficult trip.
Our recent history is decent enough as we managed a 2-1 win during Birmingham's relegation season. Zamora and Harewood helped us come from behind after we managed the not inconsiderable feat of allowing Emile Heskey to open the scoring. Later in the year we bashed them up real nice to the tune of a 3-0 victory at Upton Park.
Our previous visit was a sombre one, as a 2-2 draw sealed our own relegation. Paolo di Canio did score with a header though to highlight what a curious day it was.
Nowadays, Birmingham are relegation favourites themselves, although early indications are that they aren't as poor as previous newly promoted sides. In Mikael Forsell they have a proven Premiership player and new boy Olivier Kapo looks like a potentially good investment. I can't say that I care greatly about their prospects but I certainly buy into the idea that they contribute more to the league than say, Bolton or Wigan.
4. The History
We haven't lost our first away trip since Newcastle marmalised us 4-0 on the opening day of the 02/03 relegation season. Our horrendous away form of last year however, cannot continue if we expect to achieve any kind of stability this time around. Our travels last season yielded just 4 wins, of which 3 came in the last 9 games of the year, which I don't count as someone at the club had clearly sold their soul to the devil during that time.
It wouldn't be entirely unreasonable for us to stop conceding the first goal though, which has become a worrying trend under Curbishley. In only 7 of 22 games under him have we gone in front, and as such we tend to give ourselves large mountain shaped molehills to climb.
Come back Lucas, all is forgiven (not that you did anything wrong).
5. Striker Light
With Bobby Zamora performing against Man City like a chimpanzee on mind bending drugs, it's not inconceivable that Curbishley may choose to start with Dean Ashton tomorrow. I'm not sure that I would be in agreement with that plan, irrespective of Zamora's hallucinogenic attempts to stay onside.
Ashton hardly set the world alight last week (as opposed to Zamora who would have set his own face alight if someone gave him a candle), and looked rather short of fitness, even against Richard Dunne. Unless he accidentally disembowels Mark Noble whilst warming up I can't see that Zamora could be any worse than last week, and he will have fond memories of his last trip to St Andrews when he scored a wonder goal.
Ashton should temporarily remain as a late replacement battering ram substitute until he is able to outmanoeuvre cement bags, and one would hope that the addition of goalscoring midfielders Ljungberg and Dyer will allow us to cope in the meantime.
6. A Personal Insult
I almost forgot! I hate Steve Bruce! Not only is he a champion whinger but he also took far too much pleasure in our relegation.
Despite all of this I must confess that I have a sneaking admiration for a man whose nose points in two different directions at once.
7. The Return Of - "Oh My God Get Over It You Losers"
Sheffield United are suing us again. Their "No Win/No Fee" lawyers have determined that they have a splendid case despite the fact that, well, they really don't.
Quite what they thi - "OK, these are Head Hammer Shark's fingers here. His brain is asking us to keep typing some stuff about this monotonous load of claptrap but we're putting a stop to it. We know you'll all thank us. And 'Hey Doofus', stop clicking your cracking your knuckles, you'll give us arthritis'".
8. The Return Of The Oft Injured
Our ex Bluenose Matthew Upson returns to St Andrews. I have no idea of the kind of reception he'll receive, but if he was as good for them as he has been for us then it might involve Molotov Cocktails.
Mind you, instead of booing him they should probably be worshipping him as some sort of god given that they got £6m for him.....
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the sports section, Alan Curbishley spends £6m on Kieron Dyer. The price is still the same as the originally proposed deal that fell through when Newcastle chairman Mike Ashley upped the price at the last minute. Quite what universe Ashley is operating in escapes me. How is £6m not enough to buy an oft injured trouble maker like Dyer?
Anyway, the new arrival goes into the squad for the trip to Birmingham where he will compete for a place with Lee Bowyer. Hopefully not literally.
2. London Calling
Not content with uniting Bellamy, Bowyer, Dyer and Ferdinand as the Premiership version of The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, Curbishley has decided that this simply isn't enough disruption in one team and apparently now plans to add renowned good egg, Nicolas Anelka to the mix.
Whilst the talent of all of these players is undeniable, it is no secret why they have either moved from one club to another or, in Dyer's case, seen their careers stultify at an unsuccessful club.
The law of averages suggested that Anelka would end up here eventually given his propensity for one year stays, but it's a surprise that Curbishley would try and shoehorn so much potential dissension into the ranks.
Given that we were supposed to have had a summer clearout of the club's troublemakers is anyone else wondering exactly what Nigel Reo Coker and Marlon Harewood were doing last year? Short of selling drugs to Junior Hammers I can't quite imagine what it is that they were up to that could see them be viewed as worse than the players listed above.
Just to jog the memory, Bowyer and Dyer ended up in court for having a fist fight in the middle of St James's Park - during a Premiership game.
Perhaps all of this is indicative of the challenge facing Magnusson and Curbishley. Their statement of intent about being regulars in the Champions League is not quite so easily achieved as simply spending a boatload of cash (see United, Newcastle) and attracting the right players to do this.
At this juncture we appear to be trying to buy those players who are either not quite good enough for the top 4 teams (Parker, Upson) or those who have had issues in staying at one of those bigger clubs (Bellamy, Ljungberg). It's a passable scheme but one that does lay us open to having a team full of lunatics.
3. The Opposition
For the second consecutive year our first away game sees us at a newly promoted team. After an impressive opening day draw at Chelsea, City then managed only a 2-2 draw at home to Sunderland. With no wins thus far, they will be looking to open their account against us and St Andrews should prove a difficult trip.
Our recent history is decent enough as we managed a 2-1 win during Birmingham's relegation season. Zamora and Harewood helped us come from behind after we managed the not inconsiderable feat of allowing Emile Heskey to open the scoring. Later in the year we bashed them up real nice to the tune of a 3-0 victory at Upton Park.
Our previous visit was a sombre one, as a 2-2 draw sealed our own relegation. Paolo di Canio did score with a header though to highlight what a curious day it was.
Nowadays, Birmingham are relegation favourites themselves, although early indications are that they aren't as poor as previous newly promoted sides. In Mikael Forsell they have a proven Premiership player and new boy Olivier Kapo looks like a potentially good investment. I can't say that I care greatly about their prospects but I certainly buy into the idea that they contribute more to the league than say, Bolton or Wigan.
4. The History
We haven't lost our first away trip since Newcastle marmalised us 4-0 on the opening day of the 02/03 relegation season. Our horrendous away form of last year however, cannot continue if we expect to achieve any kind of stability this time around. Our travels last season yielded just 4 wins, of which 3 came in the last 9 games of the year, which I don't count as someone at the club had clearly sold their soul to the devil during that time.
It wouldn't be entirely unreasonable for us to stop conceding the first goal though, which has become a worrying trend under Curbishley. In only 7 of 22 games under him have we gone in front, and as such we tend to give ourselves large mountain shaped molehills to climb.
Come back Lucas, all is forgiven (not that you did anything wrong).
5. Striker Light
With Bobby Zamora performing against Man City like a chimpanzee on mind bending drugs, it's not inconceivable that Curbishley may choose to start with Dean Ashton tomorrow. I'm not sure that I would be in agreement with that plan, irrespective of Zamora's hallucinogenic attempts to stay onside.
Ashton hardly set the world alight last week (as opposed to Zamora who would have set his own face alight if someone gave him a candle), and looked rather short of fitness, even against Richard Dunne. Unless he accidentally disembowels Mark Noble whilst warming up I can't see that Zamora could be any worse than last week, and he will have fond memories of his last trip to St Andrews when he scored a wonder goal.
Ashton should temporarily remain as a late replacement battering ram substitute until he is able to outmanoeuvre cement bags, and one would hope that the addition of goalscoring midfielders Ljungberg and Dyer will allow us to cope in the meantime.
6. A Personal Insult
I almost forgot! I hate Steve Bruce! Not only is he a champion whinger but he also took far too much pleasure in our relegation.
Despite all of this I must confess that I have a sneaking admiration for a man whose nose points in two different directions at once.
7. The Return Of - "Oh My God Get Over It You Losers"
Sheffield United are suing us again. Their "No Win/No Fee" lawyers have determined that they have a splendid case despite the fact that, well, they really don't.
Quite what they thi - "OK, these are Head Hammer Shark's fingers here. His brain is asking us to keep typing some stuff about this monotonous load of claptrap but we're putting a stop to it. We know you'll all thank us. And 'Hey Doofus', stop clicking your cracking your knuckles, you'll give us arthritis'".
8. The Return Of The Oft Injured
Our ex Bluenose Matthew Upson returns to St Andrews. I have no idea of the kind of reception he'll receive, but if he was as good for them as he has been for us then it might involve Molotov Cocktails.
Mind you, instead of booing him they should probably be worshipping him as some sort of god given that they got £6m for him.....
Sunday, August 12, 2007
West Ham 0 - 2 Manchester City (And Other Ramblings)
West Ham 0 - 2 Man City (Bianchi - 18, Geovanni - 87)
Attendance - 34,921
1. Paradise Lost
Well, there goes the unbeaten season.
2. Great Expectations
Even from Kolkata this looked terrible. I mean, how bad is it to be totally outplayed by a Sven Goran Eriksson side? Ecuador didn't manage that in the World Cup and they were aspiring to be mediocre.
I have rarely seen us look so insipid, which is quite a statement given that I've had a season ticket since I was 12. We conceded possession with such frequency that by the end I was beginning to suspect that new City chairman Thaksin Shinawatra had been up to his old tricks and carried out some human rights abuse on our midfield. Allegedly.
Perhaps even more worrying was that we looked flat in every aspect of the game. The players didn't look particularly sharp, there was little or no flair evident in our play and as mentioned above, anytime that we looked as though we might be able to build a period of sustained pressure we simply coughed up the ball with a misplaced pass. That's just so last season man.
3. War And Peace
Surveying the cyber world, it would seem that Hammers fans are divided over yesterday's "performance". If I had to decide between the two prevailing opinions of - "It's the end of the world!" or "It's only the first game of the year", then I'd probably err towards the latter.
This probably doesn't surprise you, knowing that I'm a fairly relaxed, but impressively purposeful, chap. However, last time I checked, the number of points available for a victory doesn't change dependent upon the time of year that you win. And given that we survived last season courtesy of a last day win, then I won't quite go so far as to be flippant about a defeat like this.
4. Mathematical Principles Of Natural Philosophy
Given that we were so unimpressive in possession, it would seem curious that we had 52% of the ball yesterday. Less surprisingly City outshot us by a grand total of 16 to 9. Closer inspection reveals that this isn't quite the sign of dominance that it might seem, as new City winger Martin Petrov had no less than 7 of those himself.
If City are ever outshot again it will be a minor miracle, given that Petrov appears to view it as a sign of weakness to pass to a team mate when within a two mile radius of the opposition goal.
Elsewhere, Bobby Zamora managed to commit no less than 6 fouls on his own, all whilst winning less aerial battles than the Luxembourg Air Force.
Matthew Upson had more shots than Craig Bellamy. A. Hem.
4. A Tale Of Two Cities
I'm not quite prepared to jump on the "City are fantastic" bandwagon, despite their evident superiority. After the opening goal, City made essentially no attempt to score a second until Curbishley took the rather curious decision to defend our left side using merely the Warsaw Pact instead of an actual full back.
As with pretty much any other team managed by Eriksson, once they took the lead City simply sat back and were content to hang on to their lead. I'm not complaining as such, if we can't break down a defence containing Richard Dunne then we have no grounds for moaning, but all the same, this doesn't strike me as a recipe for prolonged success.
The interchangeable cast of Eriksson's foreign new boys certainly acquitted themselves well enough though, given that none of them had met before. Unlike our midfield who simply played like strangers.
5. The Critique Of Judgement
It's quite hard to be objective about the performance of Peter Walton in this game. Objectively, he was terrible. Subjectively his was far from the worst performance out there so why bother to highlight it?
I would suggest that City fans found it equally as frustrating to see the game broken up by so many decisions that were plainly incorrect. Our cause wasn't helped by the fact that Bobby Zamora appears to equate "tackling" with "jumping on a defenders back".
6. The Divine Comedy
There was a lovely bit of play in the first half when Matthew Upson fed a splendid ball out wide to Luis Boa Morte, who in turn casually slipped a couple of challenges, before hitting Bobby Zamora with an inch perfect pas-
Actually, hang on a minute. That never happened. In fact, as I recall, Boa Morte was dispossessed (I'm not sure he ever does anything else but get dispossessed), leading to Elano running unhindered through our granite legged defence to set up the first goal. Of gravest concern was Upson's very passable impersonation of a statue during all of this. Quite what James Collins made of it all is beyond me, given his outstanding form at the tail end of last year.
I expect he makes quite a bit of it, actually.
7. The Art Of War
Events late in the second half of this game conspired to have me questioning Alan Curbishley's sanity. Before I begin chastising him too fully, let me first admit that I was impressed by his boldness in search of an equaliser.
He showed a willingness to think laterally that surprised me, although it was the application of that ambition that left me despairing.
His decision to substitute the woeful pairing of Bowyer and Boa Morte at half time was encouraging. There was an inherent risk that an injury to one of our defenders (read: Upson) would have forced him to bring on Gabbidon and burn the option of using Dean Ashton, but in the circumstances I was content with the thought process.
The move actually paid immediate dividends as Etherington began to drive through the City right side and Mullins stabilised our floundering midfield. Indeed, we almost carved out an equaliser when Ljungberg narrowly failed to convert a cross from the former.
Inexplicably, after our first period of sustained pressure Curbishley then took off McCartney, pushed Etherington to a quasi left back role, and brought Ashton on up front.
What was most curious about this was that it obviously and immediately negated our most potent attacking threat whilst simultaneously crowding the attacking third of the pitch. As it turned out, Ashton received little by way of service and Etherington was unsurprisingly exposed for the second City goal.
My own preference would have been to remove Zamora, who by this point was doing a very passable impression of a bag of peat, and try and pair Ashton with Bellamy.
8. Les Miserables
All of which chopping and changing meant that not one of our four midfield positions were occupied by the same player for the entire 90 minutes.
Hurry back Scott Parker, your midfield needs you.
9. The Odyssey
So it's a long season, and panic at this point is probably not justified but I reckon a slab of mild hysteria would be okay though.
A win at Birmingham and a bit of perspective will be restored. Sadly, that feels like something that I wrote just about every week last season.
Previously Curbishley was always noted for his ability to get Charlton flying at the start of the season, and falling away dismally by the culmination. Worryingly he seems to be operating in reverse here as this performance was essentially a repeat of everything we saw from November to March last season. His buys have been solid, but stolid, and the loss of our flair duo Tevez and Benayoun, has left a gaping hole.
Is the only option out there really Kieron Dyer though? Really? Really?
10. Vanity Fair
Good to see Craig Bellamy proving my theory that Goblin physiology is markedly different to humans by wearing a long sleeve shirt on the hottest day of the year.
A goal or two wouldn't go amiss though Griphook.........
Attendance - 34,921
1. Paradise Lost
Well, there goes the unbeaten season.
2. Great Expectations
Even from Kolkata this looked terrible. I mean, how bad is it to be totally outplayed by a Sven Goran Eriksson side? Ecuador didn't manage that in the World Cup and they were aspiring to be mediocre.
I have rarely seen us look so insipid, which is quite a statement given that I've had a season ticket since I was 12. We conceded possession with such frequency that by the end I was beginning to suspect that new City chairman Thaksin Shinawatra had been up to his old tricks and carried out some human rights abuse on our midfield. Allegedly.
Perhaps even more worrying was that we looked flat in every aspect of the game. The players didn't look particularly sharp, there was little or no flair evident in our play and as mentioned above, anytime that we looked as though we might be able to build a period of sustained pressure we simply coughed up the ball with a misplaced pass. That's just so last season man.
3. War And Peace
Surveying the cyber world, it would seem that Hammers fans are divided over yesterday's "performance". If I had to decide between the two prevailing opinions of - "It's the end of the world!" or "It's only the first game of the year", then I'd probably err towards the latter.
This probably doesn't surprise you, knowing that I'm a fairly relaxed, but impressively purposeful, chap. However, last time I checked, the number of points available for a victory doesn't change dependent upon the time of year that you win. And given that we survived last season courtesy of a last day win, then I won't quite go so far as to be flippant about a defeat like this.
4. Mathematical Principles Of Natural Philosophy
Given that we were so unimpressive in possession, it would seem curious that we had 52% of the ball yesterday. Less surprisingly City outshot us by a grand total of 16 to 9. Closer inspection reveals that this isn't quite the sign of dominance that it might seem, as new City winger Martin Petrov had no less than 7 of those himself.
If City are ever outshot again it will be a minor miracle, given that Petrov appears to view it as a sign of weakness to pass to a team mate when within a two mile radius of the opposition goal.
Elsewhere, Bobby Zamora managed to commit no less than 6 fouls on his own, all whilst winning less aerial battles than the Luxembourg Air Force.
Matthew Upson had more shots than Craig Bellamy. A. Hem.
4. A Tale Of Two Cities
I'm not quite prepared to jump on the "City are fantastic" bandwagon, despite their evident superiority. After the opening goal, City made essentially no attempt to score a second until Curbishley took the rather curious decision to defend our left side using merely the Warsaw Pact instead of an actual full back.
As with pretty much any other team managed by Eriksson, once they took the lead City simply sat back and were content to hang on to their lead. I'm not complaining as such, if we can't break down a defence containing Richard Dunne then we have no grounds for moaning, but all the same, this doesn't strike me as a recipe for prolonged success.
The interchangeable cast of Eriksson's foreign new boys certainly acquitted themselves well enough though, given that none of them had met before. Unlike our midfield who simply played like strangers.
5. The Critique Of Judgement
It's quite hard to be objective about the performance of Peter Walton in this game. Objectively, he was terrible. Subjectively his was far from the worst performance out there so why bother to highlight it?
I would suggest that City fans found it equally as frustrating to see the game broken up by so many decisions that were plainly incorrect. Our cause wasn't helped by the fact that Bobby Zamora appears to equate "tackling" with "jumping on a defenders back".
6. The Divine Comedy
There was a lovely bit of play in the first half when Matthew Upson fed a splendid ball out wide to Luis Boa Morte, who in turn casually slipped a couple of challenges, before hitting Bobby Zamora with an inch perfect pas-
Actually, hang on a minute. That never happened. In fact, as I recall, Boa Morte was dispossessed (I'm not sure he ever does anything else but get dispossessed), leading to Elano running unhindered through our granite legged defence to set up the first goal. Of gravest concern was Upson's very passable impersonation of a statue during all of this. Quite what James Collins made of it all is beyond me, given his outstanding form at the tail end of last year.
I expect he makes quite a bit of it, actually.
7. The Art Of War
Events late in the second half of this game conspired to have me questioning Alan Curbishley's sanity. Before I begin chastising him too fully, let me first admit that I was impressed by his boldness in search of an equaliser.
He showed a willingness to think laterally that surprised me, although it was the application of that ambition that left me despairing.
His decision to substitute the woeful pairing of Bowyer and Boa Morte at half time was encouraging. There was an inherent risk that an injury to one of our defenders (read: Upson) would have forced him to bring on Gabbidon and burn the option of using Dean Ashton, but in the circumstances I was content with the thought process.
The move actually paid immediate dividends as Etherington began to drive through the City right side and Mullins stabilised our floundering midfield. Indeed, we almost carved out an equaliser when Ljungberg narrowly failed to convert a cross from the former.
Inexplicably, after our first period of sustained pressure Curbishley then took off McCartney, pushed Etherington to a quasi left back role, and brought Ashton on up front.
What was most curious about this was that it obviously and immediately negated our most potent attacking threat whilst simultaneously crowding the attacking third of the pitch. As it turned out, Ashton received little by way of service and Etherington was unsurprisingly exposed for the second City goal.
My own preference would have been to remove Zamora, who by this point was doing a very passable impression of a bag of peat, and try and pair Ashton with Bellamy.
8. Les Miserables
All of which chopping and changing meant that not one of our four midfield positions were occupied by the same player for the entire 90 minutes.
Hurry back Scott Parker, your midfield needs you.
9. The Odyssey
So it's a long season, and panic at this point is probably not justified but I reckon a slab of mild hysteria would be okay though.
A win at Birmingham and a bit of perspective will be restored. Sadly, that feels like something that I wrote just about every week last season.
Previously Curbishley was always noted for his ability to get Charlton flying at the start of the season, and falling away dismally by the culmination. Worryingly he seems to be operating in reverse here as this performance was essentially a repeat of everything we saw from November to March last season. His buys have been solid, but stolid, and the loss of our flair duo Tevez and Benayoun, has left a gaping hole.
Is the only option out there really Kieron Dyer though? Really? Really?
10. Vanity Fair
Good to see Craig Bellamy proving my theory that Goblin physiology is markedly different to humans by wearing a long sleeve shirt on the hottest day of the year.
A goal or two wouldn't go amiss though Griphook.........
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
West Ham vs Manchester City : 11th August 2007 (Match Preview And Other Ramblings)
1. I Prefer Normal Juries To Injuries
Not to state the obvious ("Since when?" yell pairs of H List readers) but I much preferred it when our players were simply getting arrested rather than getting injured at a rate of knots.
2. Let's Begin
And so after a gap of what seems like minutes, we are no longer staring down the barrel of relegation and are instead beginning a new season, buoyed by the arrival of some proven Premier League players.
The summer has come and gone, as has Carlos Tevez, and despite the veritable maelstrom that is our dressing room there is cautious room for optimism. For a start it would be essentially impossible for a team to have as bad a year as we did last year without being Sunderland.
3. The History
Attentive readers ("Hi Dad!") will know that last years fixture against Manchester City was voted by me as the worst of the season. In fact, I'm tempted to declare it the worst game of football ever played anywhere in the cosmos.
If you doubt the veracity of my claims then consider that the UN sent troops to Upton Park at half time on humanitarian grounds. Anyway, we slumped to an atrocious 1-0 defeat and another Christmas passed in a blaze of uselessness. This victory was City's first ever Premiership win at Upton Park. The word you're looking for is "Pfft".
Both teams have subsequently undergone major changes with City following our lead in being acquired by a foreign owner, in this instance former Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Sinawatra who was ousted from power in a military coup (always encouraging). He has also been described as a "humans rights abuser of the worst kind" by a leading Human Rights group.
Naturally then he passed the Premier League's "Fit and Proper Persons" test, proving unequivocally that the only requirement for that particular examination is that the individual must have a face.
4. The Opposition
Manchester City has seen some tumultuous changes over the summer. Stuart Pearce has gone, replaced by Sven Goran Eriksson, who promptly blew the best part of £40m on lots and lots and lots of foreign players. Your familiarity with any of these buys will probably be entirely dependent upon your knowledge of Eastern European footballers but I can safely say the only one I had ever heard of was Martin Petrov, the Bulgarian winger.
Intriguingly, not one of Sven's purchases has been English, in a summer when a number of young English international players have moved clubs (Parker, Nugent, Bent, Hargreaves, Sidwell, Richardson, Baines). That could be a reflection of the ridiculous price of English players these days - £16.5m for Bent, £16m for Hargreaves, actual money for Richardson - but it could also show that not too many young Englishmen feel that playing for the Swede is likely to further their careers.
Either way, prepare not to recognise too many of City's players on Saturday.
5. The New Boys
The summer has seen an influx of players who, all things considered, would have been very welcome last year. The likes of Ljungberg, Bellamy, Parker and Faubert are unquestionably upgrades over their predecessors, although one would have to say that Faubert and Parker are also very much unquestionably injured at the moment.
The departure of Benayoun does leave us without a recognised set piece specialist, however. Alarmingly, Ljungberg took on this duty during the weekend win over Roma and took one corner so bad that it landed in a different time zone.
He did redeem himself with a better effort next time round, as it landed directly on McCartney's head for the equaliser (admittedly the only way it could have been any worse would have been if he had somehow contrived to kill himself in the process).
I shall reserve judgement given that this will be a crucial area for us as we suddenly look like we might be a threat from set pieces, with Ashton and Upson both back and out of their wheelchairs.
6. Blonde Is Beautiful
Just to clarify the heading to this paragraph - blonde hair looks good on certain people - Mrs Shark, Emily Procter, that bloke from Buffy The Vampire Slayer etc... but it really doesn't look good on Dean Ashton. In fact it's a sign of how glad I am to see the return of our burly (or, as they say in T'North - "fat") striker, that I haven't prepared a cutting edge satirical banner on the subject.
Anyway, irrespective of his tonsorial travails, with Ashton go our hopes this year. His 45 minute cameo against Roma was a thing to behold, as he did more than Bobby Zamora within the first 5 minutes of his entrance. His afternoon culminated in a fine winning goal, skipping past the French international Philippe Mexes and rifling a low shot home.
It is worth bearing in mind that Ashton made a very decent Roma backline look vulnerable upon his entrance. I give far more weight to this than if he had done it against, say, Sunderland who are, well, whatever the opposite of decent is ("Birminghamian"?).
7. Call Off The Game
Lucas Neill is injured. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I love him.
8. A Confession
Apologies for the brevity of this preview but I am actually writing this from the sweltering heat of Kolkata, India. And by sweltering I mean "How in the name of Holy Moses do they even go outside in this?"
Anyway, my firm have sent me overseas and did it somewhat inconsiderately to coincide with the begin of the football season.
Naturally, given that I'm thousands of miles from home in possible the most alien culture I've ever been in since I last visited Wolverhampton, I can watch the game live tomorrow.
So if you're going to the game tomorrow let me give you the same advice I would give to anyone attempting to cross a road in India - "Shut your eyes and pray for the best".........
Not to state the obvious ("Since when?" yell pairs of H List readers) but I much preferred it when our players were simply getting arrested rather than getting injured at a rate of knots.
2. Let's Begin
And so after a gap of what seems like minutes, we are no longer staring down the barrel of relegation and are instead beginning a new season, buoyed by the arrival of some proven Premier League players.
The summer has come and gone, as has Carlos Tevez, and despite the veritable maelstrom that is our dressing room there is cautious room for optimism. For a start it would be essentially impossible for a team to have as bad a year as we did last year without being Sunderland.
3. The History
Attentive readers ("Hi Dad!") will know that last years fixture against Manchester City was voted by me as the worst of the season. In fact, I'm tempted to declare it the worst game of football ever played anywhere in the cosmos.
If you doubt the veracity of my claims then consider that the UN sent troops to Upton Park at half time on humanitarian grounds. Anyway, we slumped to an atrocious 1-0 defeat and another Christmas passed in a blaze of uselessness. This victory was City's first ever Premiership win at Upton Park. The word you're looking for is "Pfft".
Both teams have subsequently undergone major changes with City following our lead in being acquired by a foreign owner, in this instance former Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Sinawatra who was ousted from power in a military coup (always encouraging). He has also been described as a "humans rights abuser of the worst kind" by a leading Human Rights group.
Naturally then he passed the Premier League's "Fit and Proper Persons" test, proving unequivocally that the only requirement for that particular examination is that the individual must have a face.
4. The Opposition
Manchester City has seen some tumultuous changes over the summer. Stuart Pearce has gone, replaced by Sven Goran Eriksson, who promptly blew the best part of £40m on lots and lots and lots of foreign players. Your familiarity with any of these buys will probably be entirely dependent upon your knowledge of Eastern European footballers but I can safely say the only one I had ever heard of was Martin Petrov, the Bulgarian winger.
Intriguingly, not one of Sven's purchases has been English, in a summer when a number of young English international players have moved clubs (Parker, Nugent, Bent, Hargreaves, Sidwell, Richardson, Baines). That could be a reflection of the ridiculous price of English players these days - £16.5m for Bent, £16m for Hargreaves, actual money for Richardson - but it could also show that not too many young Englishmen feel that playing for the Swede is likely to further their careers.
Either way, prepare not to recognise too many of City's players on Saturday.
5. The New Boys
The summer has seen an influx of players who, all things considered, would have been very welcome last year. The likes of Ljungberg, Bellamy, Parker and Faubert are unquestionably upgrades over their predecessors, although one would have to say that Faubert and Parker are also very much unquestionably injured at the moment.
The departure of Benayoun does leave us without a recognised set piece specialist, however. Alarmingly, Ljungberg took on this duty during the weekend win over Roma and took one corner so bad that it landed in a different time zone.
He did redeem himself with a better effort next time round, as it landed directly on McCartney's head for the equaliser (admittedly the only way it could have been any worse would have been if he had somehow contrived to kill himself in the process).
I shall reserve judgement given that this will be a crucial area for us as we suddenly look like we might be a threat from set pieces, with Ashton and Upson both back and out of their wheelchairs.
6. Blonde Is Beautiful
Just to clarify the heading to this paragraph - blonde hair looks good on certain people - Mrs Shark, Emily Procter, that bloke from Buffy The Vampire Slayer etc... but it really doesn't look good on Dean Ashton. In fact it's a sign of how glad I am to see the return of our burly (or, as they say in T'North - "fat") striker, that I haven't prepared a cutting edge satirical banner on the subject.
Anyway, irrespective of his tonsorial travails, with Ashton go our hopes this year. His 45 minute cameo against Roma was a thing to behold, as he did more than Bobby Zamora within the first 5 minutes of his entrance. His afternoon culminated in a fine winning goal, skipping past the French international Philippe Mexes and rifling a low shot home.
It is worth bearing in mind that Ashton made a very decent Roma backline look vulnerable upon his entrance. I give far more weight to this than if he had done it against, say, Sunderland who are, well, whatever the opposite of decent is ("Birminghamian"?).
7. Call Off The Game
Lucas Neill is injured. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I love him.
8. A Confession
Apologies for the brevity of this preview but I am actually writing this from the sweltering heat of Kolkata, India. And by sweltering I mean "How in the name of Holy Moses do they even go outside in this?"
Anyway, my firm have sent me overseas and did it somewhat inconsiderately to coincide with the begin of the football season.
Naturally, given that I'm thousands of miles from home in possible the most alien culture I've ever been in since I last visited Wolverhampton, I can watch the game live tomorrow.
So if you're going to the game tomorrow let me give you the same advice I would give to anyone attempting to cross a road in India - "Shut your eyes and pray for the best".........
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Friendlies (And Other Ramblings)
1. The Return
So, the new improved H List returns! Of course, it's not really new or improved but it is definitely returning. The Leyton Orient game wasn't exactly a marquee fixture but it had the rather nice feature of being on my way home so I decided to pop along, and I will begin the ramblings there.
My friend Lennaert accompanied me, despite being an Ajax fan and amused me no end with the comment that Dean Ashton looked like a "fat Lee Trundle".
2. The Statistics
I have absolutely no idea about the statistical breakdown of this game. I can confirm that both teams scored once and that Kyel Reid can't use his right foot, but anything more in depth eludes me.
A bright start saw us take the lead mid way through the opening period when Dean Ashton, knackered from all that running, decided that it would be infinitely more preferable to simply whack one in from 25 yards instead. Shortly after this, Leyton Orient responded with a belter of a goal themselves, courtesy of new signing Adam Boyd, whilst our defence were absent, off reading the last few chapters of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.
Attempts to infer anything of note from friendly games are pointless. Yes, Dean Ashton didn't die, Anton Ferdinand wasn't arrested and Carlton Cole didn't contract lumbago, but I am struggling to draw too much else from this fixture.
Orient played some nice football and might do quite well this year. Of course, given that I don't actually know what division they're in perhaps I should refrain from making too many pre season predictions ("John Paintsil will be a star for us" is haunting me as I type that sentence).
3. Ashton Watch
Let me start by saying that Ashton looked well. When I say "well" I of course mean, "not hospitalised".
He actually looks terrible. An ill advised blond dye job on his balding pate makes him look about 45, as does his somewhat extensive girth. His movement was fairly limited but still superior to that of Carlton Cole, and his touch has certainly not deserted him.
The goal was a terrific strike, lessened slightly by the fact that the Orient defence chose the "Wehrmact Ardennes" style method of containment ("Encircle him at a distance of a thousand yards!").
He later had a golden opportunity to net the winner when Matthew Etherington broke down the left, lost control of his neurological functions, and for reasons best known to his psychiatrist blasted the ball at Ashton's head with an open goal beckoning. The resulting header landed somewhere in Hackney, and Ashton suffered whiplash. Welcome back, Dean.
4. Suffering At The Cole Face
For all his physical stature and apparent potential, Carlton Cole looks a rapidly declining force to me. (Cue dozens of H List readers mouthing "Declining from what exactly?"). His lack of instinct was badly shown up by some intelligent flicks from Ashton, whilst his finishing ability was just plain bad.
There was a moment of particularly fine dual ineptitude in the first half. Gorgeous George McCartney sauntered down the left and whipped in an inch perfect cross for young Carlton, at that point standing several inches from the goal line. Evidently somewhat surprised at this, he contrived to throw his leg at the ball and, impossibly, sent it backwards, causing mild consternation to physicists everywhere.
Fortunately, the ball fell to Kyel Reid who calmly shifted it to his favoured left foot and nervelessly placed it over the roof of the stand.
Aaaaaaaand on we go.
5. The Next Night
Following the draw at Orient ("Boo, Hiss, Curbs Out") we took the journey to Milton Keynes to face the mighty MK Dons at their new stadium.
Fresh from an outstanding half time display of tricks and flicks at Orient, Hogan Ephraim netted our first before the lesser spotted Matthew Upson notched the second. Sadly, it wasn't to be as the plucky little Hammers succumbed to a 3-2 defeat ("BOO, HISS, CURBS OUT"), helpless in the face of the MK Dons late second half onslaught.
Again, I read nothing in to this. Pre season friendlies are like rounds of golf. Pointless, but you do get a nice bit of exercise out of them.
This particular game did see Freddie Ljungberg make his debut for us, however.
My Arsenal supporting friends tell me that his legs have gone and he no longer scores any goals. To me that just makes him a prototypical West Ham midfielder, but they seemed to be saying it like it was a bad thing. I'm choosing to look on the positive side - free CK underpants for all the lads, and if Olof Mellberg gets a bit trappy when we play Villa, you know Freddie doesn't mind having a crack at him.
I have a mild concern that Arsene Wenger does have a decent track record of jettisoning his top players when they are already on the decline. In this case though, we probably don't need Ljungberg to be as good as he was for Arsenal, although it would be nice, but merely better than Yossi Benayoun. Given that the Israeli was quite possibly on a Kibbutz for the first 80% of last year (he certainly wasn't anywhere near our right wing), I'm confident that Ljungberg can manage that much at least.
6. I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside
This weekend saw us take on Southend, and gave an interesting insight into how Curbishley might view his team going into next season. Ashton was conspicuous by his absence, although to be fair, he's reasonably conspicuous when he's not absent as well. Instead, Bobby Zamora started up front with Bellamy, and both Lucas Neill and Mark Noble returned to the side.
By all accounts we played pretty well. Zamora began the scoring and later both Bellamy and Ljungberg opened their West Ham accounts. Coincidentally, this marked the first time since the UK went metric that both West Ham strikers scored with a header, and one of our midfielders got into the box without suffering an unstoppable nosebleed. Hurrah for sports science.
My childhood friend Kevin Maher then bagged a consolation for The Shrimpers. A shameless bit of name dropping of which my godfather Bill Gates would no doubt disapprove.
7. Out In The Country
Our magical mystery tour of glamour venues continued apace as we took a trip to Norwich this evening. Another strong side saw Upson and Collins paired in the interesting centre half battle, and Ashton returning to partner Zamora up front.
Apparently, Ashton took some stick off the home fans but responded well to score our second after Jonathan Spector got lost and found himself in the opposition box to score the first. I have to confess that I have little concept of what abuse from Norwich fans must sound like. I mean, seriously, we've all seen the Delia clip so we know that they're a lovely family club with a slightly embarrassing Aunt on the board. How bad is it going to be getting booed by that lot?
(I did like the fact that Zamora celebrated his goal for him by using his hands to cup Ashton's ears to the crowd. It's almost like they work on that in training. They're now so well drilled that in case any of them forget to do it, another team member will do it for them. Splendid).
7. Luis Watch
The press are reporting that Luis Boa Morte had a stormer tonight. I have checked and Norwich did play someone at right back so I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that story.
It's not that I want the guy to fail, or even that I think Etherington is a better alternative, but they were both so poor last year that a repeat performance will have a hugely negative impact on our season. Our midfield last season contributed very little by way of goals, mustering just 9 in total. By contrast Lampard managed 11 on his own to highlight the worrying lack of threat from deep.
Presumably Ljungberg is here to combat that, but no doubt Boa Morte will need to rediscover the goalscoring form of his Fulham days before I am prepared to remove him from my amoeba list.
8. Of Note
We finished with 4 former Norwich men having played for us tonight. Although not ideal, I prefer this to Curbishley's vision of us having 11 ex Charlton "stars" on the field.
Norwich fans apparently refer to a corner of their ground as "The Viper Pit".
I think vipers should sue.
Results:
Leyton Orient 1 - 1 West Ham
MK Dons 3 - 2 West Ham
Southend 1 - 3 West Ham
Norwich 1 - 2 West Ham
So, the new improved H List returns! Of course, it's not really new or improved but it is definitely returning. The Leyton Orient game wasn't exactly a marquee fixture but it had the rather nice feature of being on my way home so I decided to pop along, and I will begin the ramblings there.
My friend Lennaert accompanied me, despite being an Ajax fan and amused me no end with the comment that Dean Ashton looked like a "fat Lee Trundle".
2. The Statistics
I have absolutely no idea about the statistical breakdown of this game. I can confirm that both teams scored once and that Kyel Reid can't use his right foot, but anything more in depth eludes me.
A bright start saw us take the lead mid way through the opening period when Dean Ashton, knackered from all that running, decided that it would be infinitely more preferable to simply whack one in from 25 yards instead. Shortly after this, Leyton Orient responded with a belter of a goal themselves, courtesy of new signing Adam Boyd, whilst our defence were absent, off reading the last few chapters of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.
Attempts to infer anything of note from friendly games are pointless. Yes, Dean Ashton didn't die, Anton Ferdinand wasn't arrested and Carlton Cole didn't contract lumbago, but I am struggling to draw too much else from this fixture.
Orient played some nice football and might do quite well this year. Of course, given that I don't actually know what division they're in perhaps I should refrain from making too many pre season predictions ("John Paintsil will be a star for us" is haunting me as I type that sentence).
3. Ashton Watch
Let me start by saying that Ashton looked well. When I say "well" I of course mean, "not hospitalised".
He actually looks terrible. An ill advised blond dye job on his balding pate makes him look about 45, as does his somewhat extensive girth. His movement was fairly limited but still superior to that of Carlton Cole, and his touch has certainly not deserted him.
The goal was a terrific strike, lessened slightly by the fact that the Orient defence chose the "Wehrmact Ardennes" style method of containment ("Encircle him at a distance of a thousand yards!").
He later had a golden opportunity to net the winner when Matthew Etherington broke down the left, lost control of his neurological functions, and for reasons best known to his psychiatrist blasted the ball at Ashton's head with an open goal beckoning. The resulting header landed somewhere in Hackney, and Ashton suffered whiplash. Welcome back, Dean.
4. Suffering At The Cole Face
For all his physical stature and apparent potential, Carlton Cole looks a rapidly declining force to me. (Cue dozens of H List readers mouthing "Declining from what exactly?"). His lack of instinct was badly shown up by some intelligent flicks from Ashton, whilst his finishing ability was just plain bad.
There was a moment of particularly fine dual ineptitude in the first half. Gorgeous George McCartney sauntered down the left and whipped in an inch perfect cross for young Carlton, at that point standing several inches from the goal line. Evidently somewhat surprised at this, he contrived to throw his leg at the ball and, impossibly, sent it backwards, causing mild consternation to physicists everywhere.
Fortunately, the ball fell to Kyel Reid who calmly shifted it to his favoured left foot and nervelessly placed it over the roof of the stand.
Aaaaaaaand on we go.
5. The Next Night
Following the draw at Orient ("Boo, Hiss, Curbs Out") we took the journey to Milton Keynes to face the mighty MK Dons at their new stadium.
Fresh from an outstanding half time display of tricks and flicks at Orient, Hogan Ephraim netted our first before the lesser spotted Matthew Upson notched the second. Sadly, it wasn't to be as the plucky little Hammers succumbed to a 3-2 defeat ("BOO, HISS, CURBS OUT"), helpless in the face of the MK Dons late second half onslaught.
Again, I read nothing in to this. Pre season friendlies are like rounds of golf. Pointless, but you do get a nice bit of exercise out of them.
This particular game did see Freddie Ljungberg make his debut for us, however.
My Arsenal supporting friends tell me that his legs have gone and he no longer scores any goals. To me that just makes him a prototypical West Ham midfielder, but they seemed to be saying it like it was a bad thing. I'm choosing to look on the positive side - free CK underpants for all the lads, and if Olof Mellberg gets a bit trappy when we play Villa, you know Freddie doesn't mind having a crack at him.
I have a mild concern that Arsene Wenger does have a decent track record of jettisoning his top players when they are already on the decline. In this case though, we probably don't need Ljungberg to be as good as he was for Arsenal, although it would be nice, but merely better than Yossi Benayoun. Given that the Israeli was quite possibly on a Kibbutz for the first 80% of last year (he certainly wasn't anywhere near our right wing), I'm confident that Ljungberg can manage that much at least.
6. I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside
This weekend saw us take on Southend, and gave an interesting insight into how Curbishley might view his team going into next season. Ashton was conspicuous by his absence, although to be fair, he's reasonably conspicuous when he's not absent as well. Instead, Bobby Zamora started up front with Bellamy, and both Lucas Neill and Mark Noble returned to the side.
By all accounts we played pretty well. Zamora began the scoring and later both Bellamy and Ljungberg opened their West Ham accounts. Coincidentally, this marked the first time since the UK went metric that both West Ham strikers scored with a header, and one of our midfielders got into the box without suffering an unstoppable nosebleed. Hurrah for sports science.
My childhood friend Kevin Maher then bagged a consolation for The Shrimpers. A shameless bit of name dropping of which my godfather Bill Gates would no doubt disapprove.
7. Out In The Country
Our magical mystery tour of glamour venues continued apace as we took a trip to Norwich this evening. Another strong side saw Upson and Collins paired in the interesting centre half battle, and Ashton returning to partner Zamora up front.
Apparently, Ashton took some stick off the home fans but responded well to score our second after Jonathan Spector got lost and found himself in the opposition box to score the first. I have to confess that I have little concept of what abuse from Norwich fans must sound like. I mean, seriously, we've all seen the Delia clip so we know that they're a lovely family club with a slightly embarrassing Aunt on the board. How bad is it going to be getting booed by that lot?
(I did like the fact that Zamora celebrated his goal for him by using his hands to cup Ashton's ears to the crowd. It's almost like they work on that in training. They're now so well drilled that in case any of them forget to do it, another team member will do it for them. Splendid).
7. Luis Watch
The press are reporting that Luis Boa Morte had a stormer tonight. I have checked and Norwich did play someone at right back so I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that story.
It's not that I want the guy to fail, or even that I think Etherington is a better alternative, but they were both so poor last year that a repeat performance will have a hugely negative impact on our season. Our midfield last season contributed very little by way of goals, mustering just 9 in total. By contrast Lampard managed 11 on his own to highlight the worrying lack of threat from deep.
Presumably Ljungberg is here to combat that, but no doubt Boa Morte will need to rediscover the goalscoring form of his Fulham days before I am prepared to remove him from my amoeba list.
8. Of Note
We finished with 4 former Norwich men having played for us tonight. Although not ideal, I prefer this to Curbishley's vision of us having 11 ex Charlton "stars" on the field.
Norwich fans apparently refer to a corner of their ground as "The Viper Pit".
I think vipers should sue.
Results:
Leyton Orient 1 - 1 West Ham
MK Dons 3 - 2 West Ham
Southend 1 - 3 West Ham
Norwich 1 - 2 West Ham
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