BIG MATCH PREVIEW
So a New Year has dawned but
nothing much has changed, with a club in crisis playing at the CCS. The big
surprise though is it's not us! Tomorrow we welcome the Hammers on the back of
a morale-sapping disastrous set of results that has left scribes interrogating
the footie lexicon to adequately describe their predicament following a 5-0 'trouncing'
by Forest in the FA Cup and their 6-0 'drubbing' at the hands of Man City in
the League Cup. Time then to 'concentrate on the league' where a run of one win
out of 13 has seen them drop into the relegation zone with Big Sam 'on borrowed
time' should the buoyant Bluebirds beat the blubbering bubble-blowers.
Allardyce is of course one of the
games more 'colourful' characters - a much travelled manager whose career has
seen more hastily abandoned clubs than Tiger Woods in flight from his missus.
The larger-than-life masticating
maverick is a controversial character infamous for his starring role in the
Panorama expose Undercover: Football's
Dirty Secret, during which two agents separately claimed to have paid bungs
to Allardyce for arranging transfers. Allardyce's outrage at this libellous slur
on his reputation upset him so much that he was quite unable to follow up his
threat to take his accusers to court, preferring instead to defend his
integrity by poutily refusing to talk to the BBC. From which some people inferred
his guilt. As guilty in fact 'as a puppy sitting next to a pile of poo'
(Blackadder)
Which brings us to our own young
pup, a pedigree pooch, the Norwegian Molde Hound they call 'Ole' whose doe-eyed
demeanour belies a steely resolve and a bite worse than his bark, as befitting
a man given the moniker 'The Baby-Faced Assassin'.
The opposition are in disarray
and although we've had problems of our own in recent weeks these have resulted
from circumstances beyond the control of the players who've responded well and
can hold their heads high. There's no reason to think that the fans and players
won't quickly get behind the new man, notwithstanding the debt owed to his
proud predecessor who will always command respect for the dignified way he
dealt with the fall-out from Tan's ego-driven idiocy.
Solskjaer has started well,
controlling his early exchanges with the press with a disarming affability and
an eloquence that would put most premiership managers to shame. This and an
unlikely victory at Newcastle in his first game in charge have already endeared
him to the fans who sense a wind of change blowing around Sloper Road as we
enter a new era with renewed hope.
Ole has been quick to take
advantage of Tan the Cantankerous' newly rediscovered largesse, having already
secured funding for three names that look like winning lines from the World
Scrabble Championship for the Partially Sighted - Magnus Wolf Eikrem, Mama
Biram Diouf and in view of recent events the appropriately named Mats Moeller
Daehli - a signing bordering on the surreal.
Meanwhile Big Sam has been given
the dreaded vote of confidence from the West Ham board which is about as
reassuring as a handshake from Albert Pierrepoint. Mind the trap-door Sam.
CCFC 0 v 2 WEST HAM
Today's must-win game was billed
as a battle of styles - of two teams fashioned by the personalities of the
managers; the young innocents with the choirboy looks, easy on the eye and eager
to please versus the gnarled cynical old hacks with all the endearing qualities
of a bull mastiff chewing a wasp. The good guys against the bad guys. And the
good guys always win. Don't they?
Against all expectation and hope
it was the away team that came out of the blocks with real purpose and intent. Within
5 minutes they had Marshall beaten by a low curling cross-cum-shot that evaded
everyone to rebound back off the post.
The away fans were purring, prompting
the Canton End to taunt them with 'You've only got one song, you've only got
one song'. Actually it turns out that they've got at least two in their
repertoire. There's the one we all know about - the old musical hall number dating
from the 1920's when the tune was used to advertise Pear's Soap. At the time a
West Ham player, Billy J 'Bubbles' Murray apparently bore a strong resemblance
to the girl on the Pear's poster (It probably doesn't pay to speculate too much
on how the lyrics inspired dressing room antics involving 'pretty Bubbles'...)
And the latest addition to the
cockney's canon is bizarrely enough the soft boy new romantic Spandau Ballet standard
'Gold' in praise of their co-owner, the tittilator-in-chief, the fornicator's
friend David 'Knickerbox Glory' Gold. Gotta hand it them lemon squeezers they
do like an ol' ding-dong. Oi!
The first half was a stop-start
affair that struggled to gain any momentum after the ten minute delay for the
injury to the Hammers' Guy Demel who was to spend the night in hospital
following a suspected broken elbow after falling awkwardly when shoving Fraizer
Campbell to the ground in what looked to me like a clear penalty shout.
(Limited sympathies then...)
The first hint of any quality was
a mazy run by Odemwingie after 25 minutes which came to nothing. Noone threatened
occasionally but the deep-set Hammers' defence stood firm. The nearest we came
to a breakthrough was Kim's deflected shot which hit the underside of the bar
and bounced on, but not over, the line. I've worn out the rewind button on my
digibox and after a couple of glasses of wine at some point past midnight last
night I can confirm that it definitely looked over the line to me.
On 42 minutes (which represented little
more than half an hour of play) Carlton Cole anticipated a cross from the right
catching T-C cold to blast past Marshall from close range. For all his industry
and commitment our French right back has been guilty of stupefiant naivete at
times this season which has cost us dear.
Our first half performance was
strangely flat. We had plenty of possession but lacked any initiative around
the box, sending passes laterally and losing ground when in good positions. Kim,
Noone, Whiitingham, Odemwingie, Campbell are all similar in stature and temperament.
We were missing someone capable of dictating play in dangerous positions. Enter
Bellamy.
The Tremorfa Terrier took to the
field for the second half, replacing the ineffective Odemwingie whose contributions
to date have been incommensurate with expectations and reputation and I'll be
surprised if he's not marked down in the new manager's January Sales catalogue.
Bellamy dictated play immediately and typically galvanised those around him,
going close himself with a free kick and creating the sort of incisive runs
that had been absent previously.
It was turning into one of those
games where we weren't quite getting the rub of the green. All the critical
moments - goal line incidents, penalty shouts, offside calls, contentious
challenges, were resolved in the opposition's favour. The stats show that the
63% possession yielded 19 shots, 7 on target, each one finding the goalkeeper's
midriff. The clearest opportunity fell to Campbell whose instinctive shot from
the six yard box was aimed at the 10% of the goal that Adrian had covered.
Solskjaer made some enterprising
substitutions, bringing on new boy Wolff Eikrem for El Pitbull in order to
comply with the Premier League's quota of only one feral beast per team, and
then replacing Hudson with Cornelius, leaving just three at the back.
It looked as though Lady Luck had
belatedly turned up, flustered, apologetic and brandishing a red card when the
unlucky Tomkins was given his marching orders with about ten minutes left but
this allowed the opposition to reinforce their defence, drop deeper in midfield
and indulge in the dark arts of groin-grabbing, dead-legging, ankle-stomping,
calf-scraping and time-wasting so beloved of the Bungmeister General. It was no
real surprise - but a sickening blow all the same - when they broke out of
defence on 90 minutes to seal their victory.
This time next week we'll be
completing the double against Man City at the City of Manchester Stadium. By
then Etihad Airways will have replaced their Airbus A380s with a fleet of pigs.
We follow that with a visit to Old Trafford. By the end of the month I imagine
we will have consolidated our position in the drop-zone. An achievement of
sorts.
After the game we went to see the
film Gravity in which Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are cut loose from base
and drift off into deep space. SPOILER ALERT!! Bullock manages to survive
against the odds. Clooney doesn't. If there's a cute analogy it must be
Bullock's.
