EXTRA TIME

Two defeats on the Sunday

August 14, 2022 at 5:42 pm Leave a comment

Holidays are coming to an end, and Sunday’s football games didn’t help my mood either.

West Ham lost away at newly promoted Nottingham Forest on a hot afternoon when Premier League football returned to the City Ground after a 23-year-absence. The Hammers twice hit the bar, and Declan Rice missed a glorious chance to rescue a draw when his weak penalty was saved by brilliant Forest goalkeeper Henderson. Scamacca came on late for Antonio and was of no impact, but Benrahma played very well and was unlucky when he had a goal disallowed by VAR and when his second half strike only went onto the crossbar.

A bad day for West Ham, a great afternoon for Nottingham Forest…. 🌳 West Ham didn’t play bad today though, and could well have won. But after another loss, now we have to be grateful that ManUtd are so sh*t, otherwise we would be bottom of the table!

David Hautzig in his match report wrote that he had felt for some time that this season would not be anything like the previous two. Unemotionally it could be seen as a season to consolidate. But next Sunday WHU have to host Brighton, and “we all know our dismal record against them. So we could be looking at zero points after three games. You cannot spin that in a positive manner. We have started the season short on players, and now we are short on results and maybe confidence”, Hautzig said, and he concluded: “I know I am.”

And SK Rapid aren’t victorious either: at the time of starting to write this post they were trailing a 2-0 in their away game in Upper Austria against LASK with less than 10 minutes to go. LASK are managed by former Rapid coach Didi Kühbauer who of course would be happy to inflict defeat on his former club and cement LASK’s first place in the Austrian Bundesliga after four rounds played.

In the 94th minute Marco Grüll scored a consolation goal, but Rapid lose 1-2. They can at least add to their excuse that after exhausting 120 minutes in the Conference League three days ago, the manager changed his starting XI quite a lot, bringing in eight players who hadn’t started against Baku on Thursday.

For both clubs their next game is the first leg of the UEFA Conference League play-off with West Ham playing Danish green-white side Viborg, and SK Rapid having to overcome FC Vaduz from Liechtenstein. Everybody has to pick himself up now and try to find some confidence ahead of these games. Because in football “it’s all about confidence”, as the saying goes.

Just look at poor ManUtd, they very well proof at the moment that the saying is all but true.

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