Brentford pile pressure on Hammers and Moyes

West Ham 0 Brentford 2

In a desperate bid to add colour to the blog Nigel has arrived at the Best Cafe on Thursday night, wondering why there's no-one in West Ham shirts and nothing about the game in the paper. After realising his mistake he foolishly elects to come again the next night and join Matt, Lisa, Fraser, Michael and myself in the London Stadium. 

Nigel is excited by the pre-match entertainment including The Trooper by Iron Maiden as well as applause for Pele. In another bid to add colour I'm wearing my "I'm Forever Blowing Baubles" Christmas WHU jumper — though Jimmy Walker might think I'm having myself in dodgy gear.

The West Ham side looks good on paper with Soucek, Kehrer and Antonio dropped, Ogbonna at centre back, Paqueta playing deeper and Scamacca back up front. WHU start well, with some crisp passing and Rice firing a great effort against the outside of the post. For the first 20 minutes we dominate with Dawson heading narrowly wide from a corner and Bowen having a close-range shot blocked. Dawson also has a strong appeal for a penalty ignored.

But goals change games and Brentford score from a simple flick-on after a long throw. Norgaad's shot is well-saved by Fabianski but Toney is quicker to react than Cresswell or Emerson and pokes home the rebound. We could do without his crossed hammers celebration.

West Ham respond with further pressure, with Rice and Benrahma prominent, and good work by Ogbonna sets up Emerson for a shot that is parried by Raya. But the second goal is a killer after 43 minutes. Another throw-on is flicked on and Cresswell is embarrassingly out-paced and out-muscled by Dasilva, who fires into the corner with a good finish.

The Hammers almost get back into it at the start of the second half as the ref awards a penalty for Mee's foul on Bowen. Only VAR rules the foul was outside the box and the free kick comes to nothing. West Ham toil away without looking much like scoring. Paqueta, so good from Brazil in the World Cup, misplaces simple passes and the £30m Scamacca looks lethargic, though does come to life to test Raya with a stinging shot he can't hold. Moyes even plays Scamacca and Antonio together for half an hour (the departing Emerson goes straight down the tunnel) though neither look like they can read the other's play. 

GOING DOWN WITH THE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS?

Dawson does get in a header from a corner that Raya does well to tip over but Brentford see out the game fairly comfortably and Fabianski has to produce a great low save to prevent it being 3-0. "Show some urgency, just get it in the effing box!" shouts a Vicar's daughter behind us. Antonio sums it up by bustling past three players only to take a comical air-kick.

Even Fraser is beginning to lose faith in David Moyes. We could probably make Pele look poor on this form. "Said Benrahma he wants to come home!" chant the jubilant Brentford fans. 

So it's five defeats in a row and Moyes is now under serious pressure, despite the good work of the last two and a half seasons. Should we lose to Leeds, Wolves and Everton he will surely be out, though there aren't too many options to replace him. He has a point that we aren't getting much luck and played well in the first half, but it used to be West Ham who were clinical on the break and we are giving away silly goals. That's 19 league defeats in 2022 and the Bus Stop from Hounslow have joined Brighton as our bogey team.

We exit for the Refreshment Rooms where Michael is taken ill with a dose of ennui and Matt is wondering how he has been overlooked in the New Year's honours list for Services to Football Trivia. We've lost a must-win game with another at Leeds coming up. A dodgy penalty, a lucky rebound, we desperately need something to turn our season.

PLAYER RATINGS: Fabianski 7; Coufal 6, Dawson 7, Ogbonna 6, Cresswell 4, Emerson 6 (Antonio 5); Rice 8, Paqueta 5 (Soucek 5), Benrahma 7; Bowen 6, Scamacca 5.

Kicked up the Arsenal

Arsenal 3 West Ham 1

Undercover agents Nigel, Matt and myself rendezvous at my safe north London house ready to infiltrate the home fans. Matt has a bad back and looks as mobile as Iain Dowie, but spectates through the pain barrier. 

Only as we leave my gate a rather beery Gooner comes up to us. "Are you lads Arsenal fans?" It is then that Nigel denies his religion and says we are Gooners. "Course you are, you couldn't be anything else living round here!" We then learn that our new friend only got a keyring for Christmas from his missus while all the money went on his kids. At the ground we separate into our seats borrowed from absent Arsenal fans. Two seats away from me is Lee, another undercover Hammer marooned in Finsbury Park. We exchange meaningful glances. Agent Lola is also among the Arsenal fans next to the Hammers' contingent. 

I'm behind the goal with an Arsenal flag being passed over my head and chants of, "Stick you f***ing bubbles up your arse!" Saka has an early goal disallowed for offside and Arsenal move the ball around crisply. But Bowen and Antonio are causing some problems for the Arsenal defence. When Bowen has his leg taken away by Saliba, the Irons win a penalty. Despite the Gooners fans waving their arms in the air to distract him, Said sticks it down the middle and scores. I do my best to look depressed.

Coufal and Bowen pick up bookings but the team are working hard and Rice is looking strong in midfield. It's a rearguard action though and Arsenal are awarded a penalty in added time. Only thanks to VAR it's correctly overturned as the ball struck Cresswell's head. The Arsenal fans howl with rage. Incredibly we're ahead at the break.

At half time I meet Agent Nigel for a chat and then in the gents spot an Arsenal fan carrying a D H Lawrence The Lost Girl Penguin Classics tote bag. Matt has observed at the bar that the Tempranillo Shiraz is temporarily unavailable and the Flowerhead Merlot will be served instead.

The second half begins with Antonio getting through but having his shot smothered by Ramsdale. Arsenal step up a gear and their intricate passing patterns cause big problems — they also start to put themselves about a lot more. The equaliser comes when Odegaard's shot is deflected into the path of Saka, who has been played onside by Coufal.

The Gooners start to ecstatically chant, "There's only one Arsene Wenger!" after he's spotted in the stand. The second goal arrives five minutes after the equaliser when the pacy Martinelli looks likely to cross but catches out Fabianski at his near post. "We are top of the league!" chant the home fans.

The third goal arrives as Nketiah rolls Kehrer too easily and slots home a good finish as I'm hugged by a Gunners' fan. "Are you Tottenham in disguise?" ask the North Bank. 

Arsenal look like they could win the league on this form but West Ham do keep going. It's good to see Mubama get eight minutes at the end and sub Fornals forces Ramsdale to make an excellent late save. We never expected to get too much out of this and at least we have given them a game, though conceded three poor goals. The next three or four games are now vital for West Ham and Moyes to get out of a relegation struggle.

Agents Matt and Nigel meet back at my house to discuss D H Lawrence and Wainwright wallcharts over tea and Proper Job. Football is back. Arsenal will turn over a lot of teams, but now our old/new season starts with the visit of the bus stop in Hounslow. The new signings have to gel into a team and quickly.

Scaloni is a World Cup winner

So Lionel Scaloni is a World Cup winner. Though I’m sure he would exchange his World Cup medal to be able to go back in time to the 2006 FA Cup Final and boot the ball into touch rather than gift Liverpool possession, allowing Gerrard to score from 35 yards out. And that Mbappe is no Geoff Hurst. Sir Geoff didn't need penalties to score a hat-trick and ended up on the winning side. And all his goals were definitely over the line...

Mixed fortunes for World Cup Hammers

Well, Declan Rice is on the way home after it all went a bit Spursy for Harry Kane, but he had an excellent game against France and generally enhanced his reputation in Qatar. Nayef Aguerd had another fine match for Morocco against Spain but had to go off after 84 minutes with a worrying thigh injury. He missed the epic win against Portugal and could be a doubt for the semi-final against France. 

While you wouldn't have predicted forgotten Hammer Nikola Vlasic would be featuring in a World Cup semi-final after proving too much for Brazil. Vlasic, on loan at Torino, came on as a sub against Brazil and was involved in the build-up to Croatia's late equaliser. He also put away the first penalty in the shoot-out with some confidence. Might he still have a future at West Ham? Having spent £28 million on him it's not worth Moyes giving up on him just yet. 

Meanwhile the other Iron left in the competition is Alphonse Areola who will be on the bench for France unless Lloris gets injured. The Fonz is set to get two World Cup winners' medals without ever paying in a final — which is pretty cool and as my pal Matt says, a great trivia question.

Review: Boleyn Boy by Mark Noble

Boleyn Boy does what it says on the tin. Ghosted by the Guardian's Jacob Steinberg, rather like its subject it puts in a no-nonsense shift.

Mark got up to a few tricks as a kid, paying £5 to a his mate on a burger stall at the ground and receiving £20 in change. He was also briefly tempted by hooliganism but after seeing a ruck with Millwall fans decided it was all a bit too scary. 

From a young age he knows he's a bit special at football and with a lot of support from his dad, turns down approaches from Arsenal and Millwall and opts for the Irons. Another rock in his life is his girlfriend and now wife Carly.

Nobes has some interesting thoughts on his managers, not least the revelation that the players tried to talk Gianfranco Zola into making a comeback as a player, he was that good. He respected Sam Allardyce and seems to agree with Big Sam that the West Ham Way is more about showing you care than pretty football. He also feels that Sam lost focus in the final half season when it was clear his contract wasn't going to be renewed. 

Nobes feels Payet should have spoken to his skipper first about his homesickness, but that Dimi still, "made my life as West Ham captain so beautiful for 18 months". There's also a section of the players' japes, and you probably don't want to know what Robert Snodgrass did with Nobes' slippers.

Noble's take on removing that pitch invader against Burnley is interesting. "It was my way of saying 'Look, I'm a fucking West Ham fan. I've supported the team since I was born. But you don't run on the field of play.' I was as frustrated as anyone. I trained hard every day and hurt when we lost. Yet its not fair to affect the game and disturb the players." That evening he went home and when Carly brought him a cup of tea he burst into tears at the state of the club. He has a lot of respect for David Moyes and his decision to take the players on a break after that Burnley debacle.

You get a sense of how difficult it has been at times being both a West Han fan and a player, but Noble has certainly earned our affection. Having him back at the club can only be a good thing.

Life after Declan

It's pretty obvious from Declan Rice's comments while on World Cup duty that he wants to play Champions League football and win trophies that he will be leaving West Ham in the summer. It's hard to blame him — a player of his talent will go to the very top and I'm grateful to have seen him in a West Ham shirt over the past six seasons. He'd certainly get in my all-time Greatest Hammers X1. The Irons had chances to make the Champions League in the previous two seasons but failed to sign a striker and were hampered by a thin squad. Those chances don't come round very often. 

Replacing Rice will be near impossible, but there's no way we should keep a player who is dissatisfied. The team might even benefit slightly from being less reliant on Declan. There's always the chance Soucek might regain the form of two seasons ago, though Flynn Downes hasn't as yet looked good enough to be Rice's successor, but to be fair he's often been played out of position. Should Man City come in then a player exchange for cash plus Kalvin Phillips might appeal. Whatever happens, it's going to be a big test for Moyes and West Ham. Under Moyes Everton sold Rooney but improved — we have to hope he can do the same again.