Archive for April 23, 2019
Two Cup Finals And A Triple Call For VAR
West Ham have ended a bad run of three defeats with a 2-2 draw against Leicester – thatâs what will be on record when someone looks up the last third of Manuel Pellegriniâs first season at West Ham Stats in years to come. Itâs just a pity though that there wonât be a footnote to this result stating that West Ham would have won the game if the assistant ref hadnât got it wrong with Lucas Perezâs second goal! But never mind, now weâve got two cup finals and a trip to London to look forward to!
With only minutes to go and West Ham 2-1 up against the Foxes, courtesy to goals by Michail Antonio and Lucas Perez, the latter one had latched on Pedro Obiangâs pass and rounded Leicesterâs keeper Kasper Schmeichel to kill the game off with what seemed to be the 3-1 for West Ham, only to be wrongly flagged offside by the linesman. And after that incorrect decision, fortune was hiding again from the Irons when Leicester substitute Barnes put his team level in injury time!
New carpet, old mistakes
Therefore that draw tasted like defeat to the West Ham faithful on a bright sunny Holy Saturday which had brought us a new claret carpet around the pitch of the London Stadium; a carpet which had got caressed by goal scorer Michail Antonio who put West Ham up with a brilliant header in the first half. But in the end the carpet didnât play a main part and wasnât so supportive to West Hamâs squad as we had thought it would be, following Slaven Bilicâs remarks about the difficulties the players had with assessing the size of the pitch with the former green carpet under his tenure at London Stadium.
Nevertheless I am already curious about what the ground will look like with its new dress when we are going to be back to London Stadium in two weeks time for the last game of the season against Southampton! And weâre also looking forward to the unveiling of the 2019 Hammer of the Year, who in my opinion will be Declan Rice quite certainly.
But much more certain is that last yearâs HOTY will not play any role in this seasonâs contest: Marko Arnautovic hasnât scored since his âChina sagaâ in January, and he and the team have been inconsistent (to put it mildly) since Arnieâs premature waving good-bye when he was substituted throughout the second half in West Hamâs win over Arsenal. That was the last game I have watched in the London Stadium so far, and I think I havenât missed very much during my absence before coming back to Stratford at the beginning of May. Apart from the Liverpool draw, a game which the Hammers would have won if a blatant offside goal for Liverpool had not counted, West Ham have more or less underachieved in most of the games since that famous 1-0 victory over the Gunners with Declan Riceâs first goal for West Ham just two days before his twentieth birthday.
Back in January we had thought that a good cup run was on the cards and that manager Manuel Pellegriniâs pledge to fight for 7th place in the Premiership could be successful. But a lot has gone wrong since, with West Ham tumbling out of the FA Cup against much lower opposition, and they never regained the winning mentality Manuel Pellegrini had seemed to have instilled into the squad back in autumn and December. Well, one of the reasons quite certainly were the usual series of injuries that have plagued the Hammers all season (short and long term), but maybe it was also the clubâs handling of Arnieâs transfer request which had a detrimental effect on the squad. And we havenât got an in-form natural born striker in the team with Andy Carroll injured (again), Chicharito inconsistent or injured too, and Arnie … well, he’s far from being our talisman, as he was last season when his goals kept us up. The “China saga” has turned his head, and no turnaround is in sight so far. West Ham thoroughly miss a forward to score the goals you need to win a game!
Canât wait for VAR now
Having already spoken about the offside incorrectly given in last weekendâs game and the wrongly ignored offside in Liverpoolâs opening goal in the aforementioned draw with the Reds, that leads us to the recently much repeated call for VAR. Being a traditionalist I wasnât so sure if I was happy with the implementation of the video assistant in the Premier League next season, with all the interruptions of the game and the wait before we will know if a goal is going to stand or not. But in recent weeks, with Manuel Pellegrini rightly saying Manchester United’s penalties in West Hamâs 1-2 loss at Old Trafford a week ago would have been overturned with VAR, and having watched that blatant misjudgment this weekend on TV, also for me VAR now cannot come quick enough. Itâs obvious that the referees need assistance and our beautiful game will become more fair with VAR. I think with VAR already implemented in the Champions League and in Germany itâs overdue in the Premier League now!
So this season will not only be remembered for the beginning of a new area for West Ham United, dubbed the âPellegrini Revolutionâ by me in a former post (maybe a little too early taking into consideration the bumpy ride that followed towards the end of this season!). It will also be the last season without VAR. Well, I now hope and expect that the video assistant having the last word in tricky decisions will help the referees to get right what they have got wrong much too often this season.
An inconsistent campaign
And what has went wrong with West Ham and the “Pellegrini Revolution”, as we will in all likelihood not reach the target of finishing in the top ten of the Premier League? I know many say that we should be happy with mid table security and the fact that despite a really bad start (with 4 games lost in a row) West Ham never was in danger to be dragged into the fight against relegation. But with quite a lot of money spent last summer and a high calibre manager at the helm the Irons should have done better and been much more consistent throughout this campaign! Now I think the gap that has opened between 10th place and the Hammersâ points tally will be too big to be bridged with just three games to play!
I think we will need more steel in midfield next season as Declan Rice and Mark Noble havenât got enough support in the middle of the park, and we will have to buy a proper striker in summer. Throughout the season I had hoped that the trio of Felipe Anderson, Arnie & Nasri could develop a real threat to our opponents, but due to various facts that never materialised. And also the defence needs improvement as opposition goals have gone in much too easy, not only in recent games! I like Zabaleta and Masuaku going forward and beating their opponents in wing positions, but their crosses frequently lead to nothing and they are beaten themselves much too often in counter attacks. And unfortunately Cresswell and Fredericks havenât delivered much better either imo. Issa Diop has played very well as a central defender especially in the partnership with âGeneralâ Balbuena, but heâs still young and seems to be âoverplayedâ and out of form recently. Finally MP will have to be more open to develop some kind of “plan B” for certain matches if his “plan A” is not working. I hope he will get a decent transfer kitty, our long term injuries will come back in the summer, and West Ham will be able to offload some of the fringe players and buy wisely; then a new season and a fresh attempt to become a real force in our big claret carpet stadium can start!
Two Cup Finals and a conference ahead
As regards football here in Austria my favourite club Rapid Vienna has done much better in the domestic cup than West Ham have. Sorry, West Hamâs menâs team, I should have said! Because the âhonorable ladiesâ in claret&blue have sensationally reached the Women’s FA Cup final, West Ham women v Manchester City women in Wembley: only to be played the same day as West Hamâs final home game at the London Stadium! So it wonât be possible that we watch both of these games in London, much to my wife Evaâs pleasure though, as she can avoid a âfootball overkillâ on our trip!
Back to the mighty SK Rapid Wien whose club pastor Christoph Pelczar I have been able to meet recently (in the pic with midfielder Dejan Ljubicic): After a disappointing Bundesliga campaign in which Rapid have not reached the “champions play-off” of the best six clubs in Austriaâs new league format, they won a thrilling penalty shoot-out in the cup semis against LASK Linz, and now weâve got a cup final ahead just days before we fly to London. Fortunately there isnât a conflict of schedules with this final, so I will be able to watch Rapid on Wednesday and West Hamâs Premier League team on Saturday, and then participate in the LC19 leadership conference in Royal Albert Hall on Monday and Tuesday!
Rapid Vienna take on Red Bull Salzburg on the 1st of May in Klagenfurt, hoping to win their first silverware since 2008! Two years ago Rapid have lost the final against the same opponents at the same venue – now this is an other chance to beat the odds and defeat RBS, the club that have dominated Austrian football for years now. As Rapid is the only club which already has beaten Salzburg in Austria this season, why not do that in the Cup final again?
So I do hope to come to London in high spirits at the beginning of May, and then weâre going to cheer on the West Ham and help them finish the season in good mood, too. Iâm sure the LC19 conference will inspire and motivate us then anyway, regardless of the outcome of the football games, though I have some doubts about how it will feel to know that this visit to the UK will be the last one before Brexit comes into effect. Albeit weâve already thought that of our last stay, back in January !
But you never know with West Ham, and with Great Britain either nowadays …
Come on you Irons!
EXTRA TIME 
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