Wolves 2 West Ham 0
It's off to the Greenwood sports bar at Victoria for this one — at least this heaving venue has a good name. Watching multi games of football in the upstairs bar is pretty similar to the sort of aural torture Alex suffered to cure his anti-social behaviour in A Clockwork Orange.
We find the one tele showing Wolves v West Ham but are surrounded by Scousers cheering six first-half goals in the Merseyside derby, plus MUFC and Spurs fans watching their game and the odd Chelsea fan watching another TV with the Chelsea v Villa game. Matt, Lisa, Fraser, Michael and myself have one, two, three, four, five senses working overtime thanks to the brave new world of Amazon Prime.
On the pitch normal service is resumed. Traore causes problems with his speed all game. West Ham concede a very poor goal straight from a corner when Dendoncker gets ahead of Ferdericks to prod home. Whatever happened to having men on the posts at corners? At least West Ham have a couple of chances, a fairly tame Ogbonna header from a corner and a fine curling effort from Fornals that is tipped over.
Haller is mystifyingly anonymous and West Ham miss Antonio's running up front. Wolves should score more after the break but Martin makes a couple of decent saves and the Irons are still in it. Fornals plays a brilliant crossfield ball into the path of Snodgrass, who takes a poor second touch and injures himself in the process of allowing Rui Patricio to gather the ball. That was the chance.
Holland makes his league debut as a sub (though the out-on-loan Diangana is surely needed if we're relying on Nathan) and Yarmolenko comes on to persistently lose the ball and incense the Vicar's Son. It's all over after more poor defending as Wolves catch us on the break and Cutrone prods home past a static Martin. "His fairtytale is over," muses Matt, as Michael suggests all West Ham fairytales are Grimm.
We retreat to the Duke of York (they might have to change the name) for a pint of Sam Smith's away from the digital cacophony. Yes Wolves looked a good side, but then so should we having spent big on Haller, Yarmolenko, Anderson and Fornals. Perhaps the Chelsea result was an aberration. We're still in deep trouble and need to beat Arsenal on Monday.
6 comments:
Hi Pete,
Great write ups recently, I haven't commented but enjoy the read.
Yes desire and application do seem to be lacking, we do look reasonable at times but nobody is going to pull any muscles through over effort!
Haller just isn't getting the service he deserves and has switched off unfortunately.
IMO we need to play with more commitment and pose some danger to keep the opposition honest.
Its going to be a long season again!
COYI.
Spot on Pete. Arsenal is at the very least a must not lose game, but Aubameyang and Lacazette is a worrying prospect.
Thanks Jack, yes Haller looks thoroughly dispirited. And agree Matt, Arsenal's strikers will enjoy playing our defence so it could be a high-scoring thriller as their defence looks equally ropey if Haller could get going again. Just hope the West Ham side that played at Chelsea turns up
We ain't keeping a clean sheet against Arsenal are we? Even a point might keep pellegrini in situ but a 2 or 3 goal defecit means he has to go surely?!
Deficit
It could be a 3-3 thriller if only we could score. If Antonio plays he should get some joy...
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