In praise of Craig Dawson

It was a good time for Craig Dawson to get his first league goal of the season on Sunday. And what a bargain he has proved at £2 million. He's not the best ball-player in the world, but he is a proper defender who enjoys tackling and scoring goals from set pieces. His character was there to see when he blocked a dangerous effort against Watford and got a kick in the head and when he had the nerve to thump home a penalty in the shoot-out against Man City.

Dawson was originally loaned as a fourth-choice centre-back and spent a couple of months on the bench. Yet he has seen off Balbuena (sold), Diop (loss of form), Ogbonna (injury) and Zouma (cat attack). Once again he is the man holding WHU together at the back. He can sometimes be vulnerable against a top class forward like Salah and bang in the odd own goal, but he never gives less than 200 per cent effort and is an example to those around him. Dawson cost £2 million after the Irons had bid £30m for James Tarkowski. A very underrated player who has come up the hard way via Rochdale and West Brom and it shows.

Dawson's sleeve saves point for West Ham

Leicester City 2 West Ham United 2 

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!

Zouma has now been punished enough

West Ham have fined Kurt Zouma two weeks' wages and he's had his cats taken away by the RSPCA. He has lost his Adidas contract and is going to get booed at every away ground and quite possibly by his own fans. It was a mistake to play him on Tuesday, but he's now been the subject of national front-page humiliation after his brother (not the brightest button in the box) posted that video on Snapchat. Plus Zouma might also face legal action. 

Young-ish men sometimes do stupid things and David Moyes claims it's out of character from the big man. If you read the court of twitter he should be banned from football forever. But there's a need for some perspective here. His actions have not been without consequence. Zouma needs educating in how to treat animals (and there's nothing the British react more to than being cruel to pets) but he also deserves the chance to prove that he can learn from his mistakes and become a better man.

Hammers win it by a whisker

West Ham 1 Watford 0 

The game is of course overshadowed by catgate and surprisingly Moyes has selected Zouma to play. If it's a dead cat strategy to distract the media from our performance at Kidderminster then it's certainly worked. There's no precedent for animal cruelty in football, but the board should surely have taken the decision to drop Zouma while disciplinary action was decided upon. 

Zouma does in fact play quite well, but is booed (or is it catcalled?) by both Watford fans and some sections of the home fans. Diehard fans Fraser, Nigel, Michael, Matt and Lisa are all in the London Stadium for this crucial game and the tribute to young Isla Caton at the start is a better advert for football.

West Ham start slowly again and our passing is at times horribly awry, while Watford look much better organised under Roy Hodgson with their two banks of four smothering West Ham's creative players. Watford almost take the lead when a good break sees Kucka head wide when he should probably score.

The Irons raise themselves and a great reverse pass from Bowen sees Benrahma have a shot first blocked by Cathcart (was it handball?) and then fire against the side of the post.The second half sees more of the same with Watford time wasting and Fornals, Benrahma and Soucek all having quiet games while Antonio looks exhausted after his spell with Jamaica. Even Rice is at times affected (though he makes a brilliant saving tackle to prevent a goal that would have been called offside) and at times it resembles a tense relegation six-pointer. 

JARROD MARCHES ON

Fabianski has to make a good save from Cleverley. Moyes acts by bringing on Lanzini for Benrahma after 60 minutes and the little playmaker does quicken up West Ham's attacks. Eight  minutes later the breakthough arrives. Lanzini finds Bowen midway in the Watford half and Jarrod's shot takes a wicked deflection off Samir to deceive Foster. If you don't shoot you don't score and that's the piece of luck we needed. Bowen is now WHU's top scorer with 11 goals.

Josh King outpaces the Hammers defence and sets up Cleverley who blazes over. Bowen cuts inside his man and Foster tips the ball on to the post. There's a tense finish to the game and there's still time for the Vicar's Son to hurl some ungodly language at a dawdling Cresswell. We hold on though and the victory takes the Hammers into an unlikely fourth spot.

The players collapse at the final whistle having ground out a result while off-form, and Michael quotes Wellington, as you do, saying, "Both mind and feeling are exhausted. I am wretched even at the moment of victory, and I always say, that next to a battle lost the greatest misery is a battle gained." Though Roy Hodgson makes an unlikely Napoleon.

It's not been a purr-fect performance and you wonder how much the media storm affected the team as a whole. But it's still a good result and, of course, on 40 points we're finally safe. Irons!

PLAYER RATINGS: Fabianski 6; Coufal 6, Dawson 7, Zouma 6 (Cat Protection rating -10), Cresswell 5; Soucek 5, Rice 7, Benrahma 5 (Lanzini 7), Fornals 5; Bowen 8, Antonio 5.

Catgate

Sometimes events surprise even seasoned West Ham watchers like myself. Of all the ways to create self-inflicted damage, Kurt Zouma kicking his cat on social media is an unexpected and bizarre own goal. And what sort of idiot thought it clever to post the video? 

We've had Antonio crashing his car while dressed as a snowman, Hayden Foxe urinating in a plant pot and Enner Valencia injuring himself on a teacup, but catgate? Even by WHU standards this is unusual. Hardly the preparation we need for the game against Watford. The club has rightfully condemned Zouma and he has apologised — and clearly needs some time with the RSPCA to think about his actions. You really couldn't make it up... and now we're not feline too confident about the match tonight.

Rice and Bowen save lacklustre Hammers

Kidderminster Harriers 1 West Ham 2 (aet) (FA Cup)

Up against a plucky non-league side in a live TV game — what could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot it seems. From the kick off Zouma hoofs the ball out of play and it gets worse. Diop is slow to everything, Kral is ineffective in midfield, Yarmolenko is getting hustled off the ball and the side just don't look up for it against a side that chases everything. 

Kidderminster take a deserved lead when Areola comes out but fails to gather a free kick and Penny calmly slots home the loose ball. The half is summed up by a stupid short corner from Noble and Johnson then booting the ball into touch.

At least Moyes removes Diop and Kral for Rice and Dawson at half-time and the Irons improve a little, even if the build-up is painfully slow. Kidderminster keeper Simpson has to make a smart double save from Bowen and Benrahma forces a great block from Preston.

The only good thing is that Robert Plant is in the crowd, allowing for Nigel to quip on WhatsApp that West Ham look Dazed and Confused after a Communication Breakdown. And I think I can hear my pal Matt shouting at the TV in Holloway.

With ten minutes left a desperate Yarmolenko performs an embarrassing dive in the box. Soucek, Cresswell and Fornals have come on but it still looks like being an epic giantkilling victory for Kidderminster until added time. Declan Rice is in his own half when he finds Fornals, but gallops upfield to take the return ball, turn inside a defender and wallop it into the roof of the net, before celebrating in front of the massively relieved away fans. Thank goodness we have a world-class player in Declan. The Cup Final Breakfast at Nigel's gaff in Kew remains on — just.

To their credit Kidderminster still make it hard for the Irons in extra time. Bowen has a goal disallowed for offside, Zouma goes down injured, and it looks like an inevitable penalty shoot-out. That's until added time again, when Yarmolenko, who has at least kept going, plays in a deflected cross to Cresswell, whose cross is turned in by Bowen at the far post. VAR might have called it offside, but Jon Moss gives it and the Hammers are through, though the players look almost apologetic after an embarrassing victory.

Great credit to sixth-tier Kidderminster for their showing. The only positive is that the Hammers did show some resilience to escape the worst result in WHU history. But this game made the lack of new WHU signings look even more shortsighted. Noble and Yarmolenko are ageing and Diop, Kral, Vlasic and Fredericks don't look good enough on this showing. Though with luck like this maybe we'll go on and win it now...

Failing to prepare

Maybe WHU should use the Boris defence: "We didn't know there was a transfer window and we didn't think it applied to us." There has to be something seriously wrong with the club's transfer policy if we can play a year with only one striker. It seems like we made a late bid to loan Jesse Lingard (never looked likely given United's stance) and made a £40m bid for Benfica's Darwin Nunez, but only on Sunday night. Ex-WHU Employee also claims we went after Duvan Zapata from Atalanta at 7pm yesterday, which was way too late. 

I can see the need for Moyes to be careful with signings given Pellegrini's record, but we've known in the summer and again in January that we need a back-up striker and are a man down in the squad with Ogbonna's injury — though maybe Alese or Baptiste can fill in. There's so much at stake here with a Europa League and FA Cup run still on and a tilt at the top four. But by not adding to the squad we're saying we're happy to be mid-table. If Antonio gets crocked then we are back to playing Bowen out of position or giving another chance to Perkins or Odubeko. Aston Villa, Everton, Newcastle, Spurs, Brighton, Palace and Burnley have all managed to sign players. We just have to hope that Moyes has some major signings lined up for the summer and that this inaction doesn't come back to haunt us.