West Ham Utd (a) Painting by numbers

West Ham Utd (a) Painting by numbers..

I hate playing West Ham because you’re always confident we’re going to win. Since Sky invented football they’re the one team who we’ve had the better of, pretty much every season. With a few Payet, Lanzini and Yarmelenko exceptions, it’s the six points in a season I can confidently bank.

My confidence was somewhat dented though this morning, not by the news of Richarlison being injured, but by the breaking news from The Daily Mirror’s Darren Lewis that David Moyes had turned down the Everton job, in favour of taking the West Ham job..... A job filled by Carlo Ancelotti before Manuel Pellegrini had been dismissed, work that one out? David Moyes allegedly turning us down...what have we become?? As you can detect by my sarcasm, this ‘story’ is exactly that, a complete and utter made up sham by a horrifically poor journalist.

The team picked itself, although personally I’d have started Sidibe and stayed as a rigid 4-4-2, but I haven’t got 15 winners to show you like Carlo has, so Coleman it was and hybrid 3-4-3 on the attack. The first 15 minutes showed why both the teams playing were where they are, poor, slow, misplaced passes and mistakes. For all Fabian Delph’s Amazon sabre rattling and calling everyone shit vs Bournemouth he was the worst player on the pitch, not leading by example and when Mark Noble is on the same pitch, that is an achievement. And it was Delph’s ridiculous nothing foul that lead to West Ham’s opener. Inswinging dead ball set piece.....Diop, 1-0. Completely and utterly avoidable. Ancelotti apoplectic in the technical area.

The lead didn’t last long, four minutes later a Lucas Digne corner flicked on by Mason Holgate and DCL unmarked at the back post to head in on the angle. 11 of Everton’s last 12 goals have come by Richarlison and DCL. 1-1. Just before halftime Pickford pulls off a world class save from Fornals to keep it even. If you haven’t seen it yet, Fornals runs onto a perfect cross to head the ball with some power from 10 yards out, the ball flying into the corner and then Pickford pushes it over with a reactionary left arm. If it was a save made by a Brazilian goalkeeper not so far away, it’d be better than Banks in 1970. Halftime 1-1

Second half, Gordon on for the very quite Bernard, he did very well and didn’t look out of place one bit. I’d like to think he’s PL level and not that both the teams had descended to U23 level quality. There was a marked improvement in the passing and Everton were intent on getting something out the game. West Ham had their moments, Snodgrass who always plays well against us was dangerous cutting in from the left, and Haller was far better against Mina today than at Goodison when Mina bullied him into submission before the half time foot longs were put onto warm. Mercifully Delph and Davies began to compete a bit, closing Rice and Noble down and hunted for the ball to feed Gordon and Sidibe, who had replaced the hologram of Theo Walcott. The game petered out from about 70 minutes, in truth both sides were probably happy to take the draw. Mason Holgate causing maximum piss boiling by going down from a ‘head butt’ that was not deemed a head butt by VAR. If only we had VAR at the Vitality Stadium last season when Richarlison was cruelly sent off. VAR strikes again vs Everton.. Fulltime 1-1. Not a great deal to report on, 2 teams very much in transition, again.

Moise Kean played well today in support of DCL, he needs some luck that’s all. He’s making the runs, he’s moving the defenders around, it just needs someone in midfield to be able to pass the ball through the gaps. Honestly, when Iwobi is back, Kean will prosper. 70 minutes will have done him the world of good today.

Mason Holgate will save this club £40m this summer. He was superb yet again, he swept behind Mina and he brought the ball out in order to push Davies and Delph forward. He and Mina are unquestionably our best pairing, we will still need reinforcements at centre back, hopefully now, certainly in the summer. But the search for Zouma’s replacement looks to be at the club already.

The news this week of Gomes and Gbamin back at Finch Farm is huge, but we still need to get some players in to fill in for them. Davies, Gylfi and Delph are not suited to 4-4-2, attacking with 2 forwards is the best form of defence at the moment, but as seen vs City and LFC, good midfielders will cut through our team.

3 wins, 1 loss and a draw out of Ancelotti’s first 5 games. It’s a great a return considering 3 games were away from home, and short space of time those games have been played over. Turning losses into draws and draws into wins will see us into the top 8 and an outside chance of Europe if we continue collecting points at our current ratio. If you’d told me that in November along with Carlo Ancelotti being our manager I’d have asked you if it was a Darren Lewis story from The Daily Mirror.

Newcastle home on Tuesday night, UTFT 💙