EXTRA TIME

A crucial game ahead

July 17, 2020 at 4:26 am Leave a comment

Tonight West Ham play Watford at home (in an empty London Stadium) and could already reach their goal of staying up if they manage to beat their fellow strugglers. With Aston Villa and Bournemouth failing to win their matches this round, West Ham would be six points ahead of the relegation zone with only two games to play if they achieve a victory over Watford. Albeit not mathematically safe, due to their superior goal difference the Hammers could start planning another season in the Premier League and David Moyes could begin reshaping the club.

But as we all know, we should never take anything for granted at West Ham. A victory over Watford isn’t unlikely at all, as West Ham’s form has improved and Tomas Soucek and especially Michail Antonio are a real threat for their opponents’ defence now. But in recent weeks a win over Chelsea and a draw at Newcastle were followed by a disappointing loss to Burnley, and inconsistency has been some kind of a “trademark” to this Club for quite a long time. Therefore nobody would be very surprised if West Ham suffer an other setback by losing this crucial game tonight. Having to play Manchester United in the penultimate game of the season, then the relegation battle could go down to the wire with strugglers Aston Villa coming to the London Stadium in the last round.

It’s this habit of “bursting bubbles” shortly after they have started to fly, which David Moyes wants to change. The manager wants a cultural reset – away from the view he had of West Ham when he was at Everton, namely of a “flaky, inconsistent” side.

That is a view that was reinforced by one of his earliest memories from the first time he was appointed manager in November 2017, when Watford were his first opponents.

“My biggest memory from that night was Marko [Arnautovic] coming off with a sore finger,” said the Scot. “I thought ‘my goodness, what is this I have got here?’.

“It was my perception [that West Ham were soft] and a lot of managers would still see it that way. It is something we need to change. We have to alter that culture.”

Moyes points to a word he heard during lockdown: “One of the things I heard in lockdown came from the Archbishop of York. He said ‘promise less, deliver more’. That has to be a bit of West Ham,” said Moyes ahead of tonight’s game against Watford.

“We can’t keep promising that we are going to go so high. We were in a difficult position when I arrived and we are still in it. Away in the distance is a wee spot of light and we are aiming to get to it.”

West Ham’s first victory this season back in August was an away win over Watford with Sébastien Haller scoring his first goals in front of a packed Vicarage Road. Mark Noble made his 468th appearance for the Hammers in the 15th anniversary of his debut for the Club. It was a different kind of world inside and outside the football ground back then, and nobody would have expected the very different kind of mood in which the reverse fixture is played now.

However, the bubbles machine will let the soap bubbles fly tonight in London Stadium when the teams step onto the pitch, and the melody of the Hammers’ “Bubbles” song will be heard from the stadium speakers ahead of the game. But there will be no crowd to sing along and a no goose bumps will arise in the stands when the music stops, as there won’t be 55,000 or more supporters to clap their hands and belt out “UNITED UNITED” to cheer their team to victory. With no “claret and blue army” present, just the owners and staff and a small number of other people are allowed inside the ground. Hopefully they will be able to watch what could be an almost final step to achieving the goal David Moyes has been appointed for a second time. Back in 2018 he had “done his duty“ and was replaced by a manager of – supposedly – “higher calibers” when the Board decided to hire former Manchester City and Real Madrid coach Manuel Pellegrini.

This time round it is all but secure that David Moyes will remain in his managerial position if he guards West Ham to safety. When he came back to London in December he said that he refused to consider surviving Premier League relegation a “success” and insisted that in the long term his ambitions sat far higher than that.

But Moyes is keen not to get carried away with thoughts of next season. In his press conference he refused to agree victory against Watford would secure a ninth successive top flight season and, after a difficult start to his second tenure, when he won only two of his first 12 Premier League games, he noted his hair has changed a bit.

“There are a lot of grey hairs but I don’t think anyone would have expected anything else,” he said.

Let’s hope that no more grey will be added to the Scot‘s head tonight and bubbles will not fade and die this time.

Come on you Irons!

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