Archive for October, 2022
Liverpool in Decline, WHU’s up?
“Are you a Premier League manager in dire need of a career-changing result?” Chris Bascombe in The Telegraph asks. “The fixture list can currently be no kinder than providing a meeting with Liverpool. Last week Steve Cooper’s bottom club Nottingham Forest regenerated against Jurgen Klopp’s flailing side. This time it was Jesse Marsch’s Leeds United escaping the bottom three with a notable victory.”
Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool of 2022/23 has already had a bunch of bad results this season and has lost one third of their Premier League games so far (4 W, 4 D, 4 L). But only from their back to back defeats to bottom teams this impression has emanated which somehow does feel familiar to West Ham fans.
The sports writer of The Telegraph continues drawing attention to one of the Anfield greats who was sacked recently as manager: “If Steven Gerrard was back at Anfield, he might have considered he would still be in the Aston Villa job had he had the fortune to face his old club in the last few weeks.”
Albeit it had seemed that Liverpool’s stuttering season had gained some momentum in recent weeks with back to back wins at home against Manchester City and West Ham, this was only to be followed now by two defeats in a row to bottom teams Nottingham Forest and Leeds United.
And things got even worse now as the Reds’ home record in front of a full Anfield Road is gone after having stood for years: Not since Crystal Palace in April 2017 has a full Liverpool crowd witnessed a Premier League defeat in their own stadium (West Ham last won there in August 2015). Only the misery of lockdown football inflicted such setbacks and Klopp’s last glimmer of light in this troubling period has been that Anfield has remained impregnable. But with the 1-2 defeat to Leeds United at home this record doesn’t stand anymore.
On Tuesday the Reds, already qualified for the knockout round of the Champions League after a 3-0 away win over Ajax last week, have another home game against in-form Napoli to which they already lost 1-4 in the reverse fixture in September, and then they have to travel to Tottenham. Spurs are third in the table while Liverpool slumped to ninth after the Nottingham and Leeds defeats.
A chance to leapfrog Liverpool
Liverpool could even be leapfrogged on Sunday by West Ham in the unlikely case of a Hammers win over Manchester United at Old Trafford. Although West Ham have won their fifth out of five Conference League games on Thursday and have only lost once (against Liverpool) since mid-September (when they lost to Everton away), the Red Devils’ form seems to be even better!
Therefore such a win seams very improbable since Manchester United has – after Erik ten Hag‘s and Davis Moyes’s teams had a dismal start into the season – improved much quicker then the Hammers: the Red Devils have not lost at home since the first game of the season (1-2 against Brighton) and haven’t conceded a single goal at their ground since Saka scored for Arsenal in the Gunners’ 1-3 defeat on 4 September, the only occasion in which Arsenal had to accept to be on the losing end this season so far.
But in football everything is possible – just think of yesterday’s 1-4 defeat of Chelsea at Graham Potter’s old club Brighton. The Blues had been unbeaten in nine games since Potter took over after Tuchel’s sacking which had followed a 0-1 at the hand of Dinamo Zagreb.
Why not repeat today the heroics of West Ham’s 1-0 win in last year’s League Cup clash at Old Trafford, and get ahead of Liverpool in the Premier League table?
Come on you Irons!
West Ham 1-0 Silkeborg
It is indeed job done for West Ham on Thursday night! Lanzin’s converted penalty is enough to sink the Danish side at London Stadium.
The Hammers are group winners with five wins from five, and go directly through to the last 16 of the Europa Conference League.
Quite A Long Audience
It seems that King Charles III has not greeted Mr Sunak with “Oh dear … you again”, as he did on one occasion when Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss appeared at Buckingham Palace.
The new PM Rishi Sunak, the first PM appointed by the new king, is said to have had quite a long audience with Charles III, because his first statement from the podium in front of Downing Street No10 was delayed.
and that he would “earn yours”. He would fill “tomorrow and every day thereafter with hope”. “Together we can achieve incredible things,” Rishi Sunak said.
Rishi Sunak’s speech in full ▶️ BBC
WHU have delivered
WHU 2 Bournemouth 0
Up to tenth in the table!
Next games:
Silkeborg (H)
Manchester Utd (A)
FCSB (A)
Crystal Palace (H)
Blackburn Rovers (League Cup, H)
Leicester (H)
“I will deliver“
It was true when I assumed in one of my latest posts that we would know the new PM on Monday before kick-off of West Ham’s game against Bournemouth.
I had planned to be in London these days. But unfortunately I have to watch the current developments and the West Ham game from abroad, not being able to make the trip. I’m staying at home due to my second Covid-19 infection.
Johnson and Mordaunt out before deadline
Boris Johnson pulled out of the PM race on Sunday evening and Penny Mordaunt did so shortly before the 2 p.m. deadline for gaining the support of at least 100 MPs on Monday, informing the public that she also had decided not to run:
I feel a little sorry for “P.M.” that with approximately 90 votes she fell narrowly short of reaching the treshold of 100 MPs which was necessary to make the ballot. Not having got the votes needed to give the members of the conservative party an other chance to have their say on who will be the next PM, means that only the Tory MPs have decided the outcome of the leadership race.
I think it might have been better to give the members a choice to decide between Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, but this would have meant that the decision who would be the next prime minister was delayed until the weekend. And Rishi Sunak could have lost a second time against a more or less untested female candidate as he did last time against Liz Truss, less than two months ago. Sunak’s coronation will delight the capital market, but what the electorate’s reaction will be remains to be seen…
UK similar to Austria
Now the situation in the UK isn’t much different from Austria: we also have a “Bundeskanzler” who was not the leader of the Conservative party when they won the latest elections. Karl Nehammer also came into office later on, and the Austrian government, too, has dramatically lost support according to the polls. And in Austria we won’t have a general election before 2024 either.
Sherelle Jacobs writes in The Telegraph:
“Mr Sunak must then, for the good of the country, level with the electorate that the era of cheap borrowing and low inflation is over, and that pain is inevitable. He must find a way of protecting the interests of ordinary people through the storm. He must prove to a sceptical public that he is a leader, not a technocrat. In this, even those who didn’t support him must wish him well; it isn’t just in the interests of the Tory party that he succeeds, but of the whole country.”
Rishi Sunak will meet King Charles on Tuesday morning before taking over as prime minister and will then give a speech by 11:30 a.m. in front of No10.
He says the UK faces ‘profound economic challenge’ and promises to serve as PM with ‘integrity’ in a brief first address in which he also said that he would deliver what was needed now.
Youngest PM in more than 200 years
Rishi Sunak becomes prime minister just seven years after entering parliament in 2015 – faster than any other politician in recent British history.
Moreover, Sunak (aged 42) becomes the youngest prime minister in more than 200 years. The youngest prime minister was William Pitt the Younger, who became PM in 1783 at the age of 24. He led the Tory Party to victory in the 1784 general election when aged 25 and served as PM twice. He died aged only 46, exhausted by the demands of an office whose modern conception he helped to establish, and of a peculiarly threatening international situation which frustrated many of his political goals.
Unite or die
In some papers the task he’s facing is described as a suicide mission. Economists doubt that Sunak can get the country’s finances under control and at the same time keep the Tories’ numerous quarrelling factions together. Under the given circumstances Rishi Sunak is right to tell the party: “Unite or die“.
However, let’s wish him well for reuniting the party and bringing stability back to the the UK.
And for now I hope that West Ham will deliver against Bournemouth tonight – the game which we had planned to visit – and move up the table in which they sit only in 17th place right now.
West Ham XI: Fabianski, Cresswell, Zouma, Kehrer, Johnson, Soucek, Rice, Downes, Benrahma, Scamacca, Bowen.
Subs: Areola, Randolph, Coufal, Ogbonna, Emerson, Lanzini, Coventry, Antonio, Fornals.
Come on you Irons!
“Second Team” Beat Arch Rivals
Am Donnerstag hat der Wiener Sportclub, mein “Second Team” in Wien, den Erzrivalen des SK Rapid, die Wiener Austria, im ÖFB Cup mit 3:1 besiegt.
Wenn am Sonntag das Cup-Viertelfinale ausgelost wird, sind sieben Bundesliga-Klubs, darunter auch Rapid, und Drittligist Wiener Sportclub “in the hat”. Die nächste Cuprunde wird vom 3. bis 5. Februar 2023 ausgespielt.
“Perfect for short stays”
As the UK Government and the Tories descend into absolute chaos, at least we’re getting some laughs. First there was the “Liz Truss lettuce” seven days ago (when the Daily Star set up a webcam on an iceberg lettuce to see if it had a longer shelf-life than the prime minister) and now everyone is making this joke about 10 Downing Street:
perfect for short stays!”
Liz Truss yesterday quit after 44 days in No 10. First Suella Braverman had to resign as Home Secretary, but then it became clear that Truss had to accept the near-total collapse of support among colleagues, becoming the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. It is the same number of days which Brian Clough’s tumultuous spell as manager at Leeds United lasted in 1974. Even Sam Allardyce’s short-lived tenure as England manager in 2016 lasted 50% longer than Liz Truss’s time in the office!
In an 89-second resignation speech in Downing Street, Ms Truss who was the third prime minister since the Brexit vote in 2016, admitted:
“I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.”
Last night the battle to replace her was already raging, with Tory MPs declaring for Mr Sunak, Mr Johnson and Penny Mordaunt, the House of Commons leader. Mr Sunak was leading on 29 Tory MP declarations, followed by 24 for a comeback of Mr Johnson and 11 for Ms Mordaunt.
On Monday we’ll know
Only MPs who secure nominations from 100 of the close to 360 Tory MPs make it into the first round of the Conservative leadership contest. The hopefuls have until 2pm on Monday to gather the numbers.
The Times reports that the first ballot of MPs will then be held between 3.30pm and 5.30pm on Monday. If there are three candidates, the candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated. The result will be announced at 6pm. If two candidates remain then an “indicative” vote will be held between 6.30pm and 8.30pm on Monday 24 October. The result will be announced at 9pm.
If there are two who get above the threshold and neither of them decided to pull out in favour of a coronation, maybe after the “indicative vote” held on Monday evening, then the final two candidates will go to a members’ vote, with the winner to be declared next Friday.
Then the party will hold what it describes as an “expedited, binding, online vote of Conservative Party members” to choose the next leader. How exactly this will work is unclear.
Election to end the chaos…
Meanwhile Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, reacted to Ms Truss’s departure by declaring: “We need a general election – now.” Labour say they are ready for election “to end this chaos”, and sources say they will keep making the demand – trying to win back No10 more than twelve years after Gordon Brown lost out in the 2010 general election and was followed by conservative David Cameron as Prime Minister.
… or Boris being back?
The Daily Telegraph reports that Boris Johnson is privately urging Conservative MPs to back him for a dramatic return to Downing Street with a pledge that only he can win the Tories the next election, having secured the biggest Tory majority for three decades in 2019. An ally told the newspaper:
“If the Tories are serious about winning in 2024 and want to stop a general election before then, they need to revert to the guy with a mandate who is a seasoned campaigner.
“They need someone to take the fight to Labour. Rishi Sunak should make contact and work out how the two of them can get back together.”
Mr Johnson is flying back from a holiday in the Caribbean as early as today.
No prime minister has returned for a second stint after leaving office since Labour’s Harold Wilson and before that Winston Churchill, Mr Johnson’s British political hero.
However, there are doubts about whether he can hit the 100 (of 357 Conservative MP) votes threshold, given how support had drained from him earlier this year leading to his resignation. Party chiefs had to deny the rules were designed to block him.
As there is also the looming Privileges Committee investigation into whether Mr Johnson misled MPs about lockdown-breaking social gatherings in No10 dubbed “partygate”, which is set to start gathering evidence within weeks, Ms Truss’ resignation as prime minister seems to have come too early for Boris Johnson…
What a time for a trip to London
This is a very interesting time to be in London – not only to watch West Ham live for the first time this season against Bournemouth at London Stadium on Monday evening …
By this time, the UK could already have a new prime minister because if only one candidate crossed the 100 MP votes threshold on Monday or all the other candidates pull out of the race, the remaining candidate would automatically become leader of the conservative party and prime minister.
In this case there would be no confirmatory vote among the membership of the Tories. Otherwise Tory members will vote between Tuesday and Friday for a new leader in order to decide the Conservative’s leadership contest within the next week. That means that Liz Truss’s successor will be confirmed by next Friday at the latest.
Unbeaten Run Comes To An End
In Liverpool the Hammers‘ run of five games in which they have been unbeaten by their opponents (Wolves 2:0, Anderlecht 1:0, Fulham 3:1, Anderlecht 2:1 and Southampton 1:1) came to an end against the Reds.
The Irons missed a penalty through Jarrod Bowen at the end of the first half, and eventually lost 0-1 against Liverpool FC.
Although they didn’t play bad, the Hammers couldn’t find the back of the net and missed some good chances including a penalty which was saved by the Liverpool keeper. Scoring goals seems to be one of the main problems which David Moyes‘s team faces this season. In 11 Premier League games West Ham have only hit the target nine times, and they have already missed two out of three penalties in these games. We are missing Mark Noble who was a reliable penalty taker!
Next game is Bournemouth at home on Monday evening. Let’s hope that this match will see West Ham returning to winning ways in front of their home crowd at London Stadium. The following Thursday Silkeborg will visit London and West Ham could make sure that they will win their Conference League group if they remain unbeaten in this game.
nother couple of important games ahead! West Ham will play every three or four days until mid-November. From the 14th of November until December 26th the Premier League will pause for six weeks because of the World Cup in Qatar.
EXTRA TIME 
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