Inside the Best Café Alison has my 1987 A-Z that she’s returning, perhaps a little tardily. The London
Stadium site is covered by Stratford Marshes and a railway depot, while there’s
a football stadium in E13. Scott is demolishing a big breakfast and possibly
the plate too as he prepares for heavy lifting duties at work and I’m
introducing my pal’s 14-year-old son Bruno, a Man United fan ripe for
conversion, to egg chips and beans.
In other news Matt, Lisa, Michael and Nigel have returned to
Ken's Café to greet Carol and have even been granted a rare appearance from Ken
outside his inner sanctum. They take the bus to the game with young Billy and
report that only half the main stand is now left standing, through Carol and
Ken are getting some good trade from the building workers. Steve the Cornish
postie makes it just after kick-off, having earlier seen Tony Cottee and Tony
Gale having pre-match refreshments in
Billericay.
West Ham start reasonably well and nearly take an early lead
as Calleri does well to find Byram in the box, only for the defender to fire
wastefully wide. Fernandes then has effort parked by Mignolet. But in the bright sun the game soon adopts an end-of-season
feel as the Hammers seem content to be staying up and we miss the bite of
Kouyate and Noble in midfield.
It takes a full 19 minutes before the gentleman behind us
hollers, “get up you tart!” at a prostrate Liverpool player. Liverpool look
more urgent and an early warning comes as the unmarked Matip heads against the
bar from a corner.
Liverpool take the lead after 35 minutes as Coutinho plays a
great through ball that dissects the Irons’ defence and Sturridge shimmies
round Adrian to score and do his silly surf dancing celebration. It could be
his last goal for Liverpool before he joins West Ham and gets injured… Byram
has just about played Sturridge onside, but it’s not a goal we should concede with
three centre backs.
Still, a goal before half-time might change things. It
should arrive as Lanzini’s corner fizzes across the area and Ayew arrives unmarked
at the back post a yard out from goal. He swings at the ball with his left foot
instead of his right and somehow hits the post, then falls over and prods the
ball against the post again. Miss of the season from our £20 million striker.
Liverpool come out determined to finish West Ham off after
the break. Adrian has to make three fine saves in succession during one move.
It’s two as Wijnaldum wallops the bar and from the rebound the ball reaches
Coutinho who skips past Nordtveit, Collins and Reid to shoot home from the edge
of then box.
Bilic takes off Fonte and reverts to a back four. Sub
Feghouli at least looks hungry and starts to take men on, winning a corner. As
his corner comes in Reid is smacked in the face by Wijnaldum’s elbow and the
Liverpool man also handballs it. As the West Ham players appeal for a penalty
they make the mistake of not playing to the whistle as ref Neil Swarbrick inexplicably
ignores a player with a head injury and allows the Scousers to break. Coutinho
waltzes round Collins to stroke home. It gets worse as more terrible defending from
our coalition of chaos sees Adrian block Lallana’s shot and Origi nets the
rebound. This should put off young Bruno for life.
“Oh well, we might have lost 4-0 but at least I’ve got an
out-of-date A-Z,” I tell Alison.
We decline to stay for a lap of dishonour in front of an
empty stadium. Better news is that my navigation successfully takes Fraser,
Michael, Nigel, Bruno and myself to the Railway pub via Penney Brookes way (last
time we ended up in Leyton). At least the Railway has Doom Bar, staff in West
Ham shirts, Mrs Flipper’s burgers and lots of claret and blue branding. After my departure Nigel moves on to the Cart
and Horses in a bid to make this blog and is hugely impressed by the Iron
Maiden memorabilia.
It’s been a long season and signings need to be made. The
London Stadium has seen us concede five and four goals at home to Man City five
against Arsenal and four against Liverpool. At least we’ve beaten Spurs, but
this finale was horrible.
PLAYER RATINGS:
Adrian 6, Byram 4, Fonte 4 (Fletcher 4), Collins 5, Reid 6, Cresswell 5;
Fernandes 4, Nordtveit 4, Lanzini 5; Ayew 4 (Snodgrass 4), Calleri 5 (Feghouli 6).
5 comments:
Why are refs/linesmen so poor? Ok we were 2 down but if we get the foul/handball on Reidy, we might not lose 4-0
When West Ham concede first they collapse . If the Kane shot that Adrian saved with his foot had gone in then Spurs would have done exactly the same as Liverpool . Midfield was not as good as Spurs game but WHU need the game to be 0-0 as long as possible against the bigger teams . Let a goal in and it is help yourself to cart loads .
We do seem to crumble as soon as we go a goal down. Though as MJ says, the ref and lino didn't help. If we'd got a penalty at 0-2 we might at least have made a game of it.
Have only just found the strength to watch this on MotD. It was Fonte who played Sturridge onside, which may help to explain why he was then hooked. And Liverpool had possession because Calleri had lost the ball with a ridiculous piece of showboating. And as for those Ayew misses - as Iron Maiden would say, run to the hills...
It was possibly the greatest miss I've ever seen by a West Ham forward - and that's saying something!
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