It's off to the Hole in the Wall at Waterloo for this one, only to find the pub doesn't have Sky any more. Then it's on to the Wellington which is mainly rugby, before Lisa at Team WHU HQ directs us to the Camel and Artichoke on Lower Marsh, which has plenty of room but subtitles rather than commentary, which does at least reduce the stress levels.
It's a near-full team of Matt — who has already seen Clapton v Stonewall the previous day — Nigel, Fraser and Michael the Whovian, who is later to dine with a legendary DJ, as you do.
Zouma has pulled out after the warm-up apparently with a stomach bug, so Diop is in. After his terrible game at Kidderminster (one paper gave him one out of ten) Issa gets a welcome confidence boost with an assist for the opener. His long ball finds Bowen getting behind the dodgy Leicester defence and slotting home a crisp finish with his left foot.
West Ham aren't playing brilliantly — and Fornals inexplicably fails to attack an inviting cross — but look in control until a routine corner is misjudged by Cresswell, who deflects the ball with his elbow. Tielemans dispatches the penalty. There's still time for Rice to surge forward and set up Cresswell who has a shot deflected wide.
Leicester are much more confident in the second half. Barnes gets round Coufal to send in a low cross that Daka just fails top connect with. On 57 minutes Coufal fails to close down Barnes;' cross and Ricardo powers above Cresswell to head home. For the rest of the game it looks like a home win and Coufal is having such a torrid time that he is replaced by Fredericks (wouldn't Johnson be better defensively?).
Benrahma comes on after 79 minutes and at least gets a few shots away. But the worrying thing is that five or six players are way off form. Coufal, Cresswell, Soucek, Fornals and Antonio are all way below their best, though Diop has done OK. Camden Pale seems the only answer.
But one thing this West Ham have is resilience. Benrahma wins a corner in the 91st minute. Bowen swings it in and the underrated Craig Dawson attacks the ball well and puts it in to the back of the net with his shoulder. There's a worrying VAR pause but as the ball hit Craig's sleeve the goal stands.
This is either two points lost in WHU's bid for the top four, or more realistically a good away point in our bid to finish in the top eight. The side isn't playing well, but we are still getting a few results. And at least this weekend no-one has kicked a cat. Irons!
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