Archive for November 7, 2020
West Ham win in crazy injury time!
Unbelievable drama in added time, as West Ham take the lead against Fulham through Tomas Soucek‘s first goal of the season (90+1), assisted by Said Benrahma from inside the box. But West Ham’s new boy from Brentford, less than four minutes later, concedes a penalty which is given after a long delay. Fulham’s Ademola Lookman steps up to take it and tries a “Panenka”, but his bizarre effort is saved by Lukasz Fabianski. And immediately afterwards “Bubbles” ring out of the speakers in London Stadium: the Hammers have won this London derby!
“Finishes like that are not good for a manager’s heart!” West Ham manager David Moyes said. “I hope we can keep winning like this: I’m seeing a resilient team now.”
With West Ham’s return to winning ways after two draws and the defeat to Liverpool, they are up to eleven points and eleventh place. After the international break West Ham travel to Sheffield United on Sunday, 22 November (14:00 GMT).
Well, and Southampton still is top of the league tonight with Liverpool, Leicester and Spurs yet to play in this round on the Sunday !
Biden wins presidency 😃
Joe Biden has won the presidency by clinching Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes, AP and CNN have just announced on Saturday afternoon (GMT).
With the majority of votes in the key state of Pennsylvania, victory in this state has put Joe Biden in the White House after four days of counting and made Kamela Harris the first female and black vice president of the United States. Four years of Trumpism should be over soon, but there will still be legal battles to be fought as Donald Trump also claimed victory soon after the voting had closed and will do all to challenge the results of the postal ballots.
That’s the president elect’s Statement after his victory was confirmed:
“I am honoured and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me and in vice-president-elect Harris.
In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of Americans voted.
Proving once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart of America.
With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation.
It’s time for America to unite. And to heal.
We are the United States of America. And there’s nothing we can’t do, if we do it together.”
Joe Biden also said: “Do not just keep the faith, spread it!”
For Kamela Harris and Joe Biden speech: Click the pic below!
Ralph reigns
Ralph Hasenhüttl is the first Austrian manager whose team has topped the English topflight. Last time West Ham have been in this place for a short time was in 2006. The Hammers are in action on Saturday against Scott Parker’s Fulham.
Southampton are top of the Premier League after beating Newcastle 2-0 on Friday night, and that is a status they have never before enjoyed. It may only last a few hours but to borrow a now infamous phrase from the American elections, the cry from their fans is also clear: “Stop the count.” In fact, it is the first time Southampton have been at the summit of the top flight since 1988 – when Joe Biden made his first attempt to be US president.
No one expects Southampton to stay there but, importantly, this was their first Friday night fixture since being humiliated 9-0 at home by Leicester City 13 months ago and it capped a stunning turnaround overseen by Ralph Hasenhuttl (53), who was delighted with the way his team achieved this victory without their top scorer Danny Ings.
“Our fans will love it and they’ll make a picture of the table,” Hasenhuttl who had tested positive for Corona in summer said. “For us, it’s nice but it shouldn’t kill the hunger for more. We should stay hungry and we should feel anything is possible with this team. It is a little scary what we are doing at the moment, to be honest, but not surprising when I see what we are working on. We made so many big steps forward.”
West Ham sits in 14th before more games of this round are being played on Saturday and Sunday, including Manchester City v Liverpool. Hammers manager David Moyes suggested that West Ham could well climb the league table in the coming weeks. On Saturday night they play a London derby against struggling Fulham, managed by former Hammer Scott Parker.
As far as I remember, the last time West Ham topped the table was on Tuesday, 22 August 2006. The Hammers had beaten Charlton 3-1 at Upton Park in the first game of the season (goals: Marlon Harewood 2; Carlton Cole). Their next game against Watford on the following Tuesday was the first match of the second round and the only one played on this day. Therefore a 1-1 draw at Vicarage Road (goal: Bobby Zamora) was enough to climb to the top of the table for 24 hours.
Some months before the Hammers had only been narrowly beaten on penalties by Liverpool in the famous FA Cup final 2006 and had had a very good first PL season 2005/06 after their promotion from the Championship. Now expectations were high for the next term and it was expected that Alan Pardew would lead the Irons to an even better following season, especially as West Ham had secured a shock transfer of Argentine stars Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez to east London.
But the shortlived lead in the second round was followed by a winless streak of ten more games, and West Ham dropped down to the relegation zone with Pardew unable to integrate the Argentines into the team. The Islandic owners who had bought West Ham at the beginning of this season replaced Pardew with Alan Curbishley before Christmas, but it took until the last game of the season against then champions Manchester United that West Ham, due to Tevez’s single goal of the match, was able to secure their “great escape” from relegation.
Carlos Tevez went to Manchester Utd afterwards to become part of a team that won its second of three consecutive Premier League titles the next season and West Ham finished tenth in the following 2007/08 season. Curbishley was replaced by Gianfranco Zola in autumn 2008 when Curbs resigned due to conflicts on transfer issues with the owners of the Club.
Scott Parker’s revisiting West Ham
At this time the manager of West Ham’s opponents, Scott Parker, who was one of the finest midfielders in modern West Ham history, played for the Hammers. He was signed in 2007 under the tenure of Curbishley and joined the Hammers from Newcastle.
Parker was voted “Hammer of the Year” twice in 2009 and 2010. In the following season of lows under Avram Grant which resulted in West Ham being relegated again, Parker was voted the “Football Writer’s Association Player of the Season” 2010/11. Therefore Parker became the first player to claim this accolade whilst in a relegated side. Few players could leave a relegated West Ham to join Spurs and still be held in as high regard as Scott. A tenacious battler who often chipped in with a match-winning performance.
Let’s hope he won’t win it tonight against West Ham as manager of Fulham!
EXTRA TIME 
Recent Comments