Sunday 30 November 2014

Demel Feels the Pressure



Ace Hammers hotshot Guy Demel will be surely feeling the pressure this morning after defensive colleague Aaron Cresswell scored the winner during the Hammers Premiership clash with Newcastle United yesterday. 'Cressy' reported himself as 'buzzin' after the strike which most Hammers fans will tell you has been coming for some time as among his many talents, the tasty-footed left back is not shy about making runs into the box to provide options for his teamates. Latching on to  Kouyate 'pass', he cooly slotted the ball into the Newcastle net.

Cresswell's goal was his first since arriving from Ipswich during the Summer outfit and brings him up alongside the prolific Ivorian in terms of career goals for the Hammers. 
However, Demel will feel under pressure in terms of the goal per game ratio, as his own strike rate rests at one in seventy five appearances as an Iron. 


Guy's frustration will surely be worsened by the form of on-loan Carl Jenkinson, who is keeping him firmly rooted to the bench - no place for a 33 year old hungry for goals. As a consequence, so far this season Demel has been restricted to a mere 4 Premiership appearances, one of which was as a substitute. 

Cresswell, meanwhile, has played in all thirteen of the Hammers matches. Not surprisingly, Cresswell odds to score against West Brom on Tuesday is 9/1, with a brace priced at 80/1. Demel is quoted at the rather miserly odds of 14/1 to score. Joey O'Brien, another full back who will be feeling itchy right now, is quoted at 12/1 to score in a match he seems pretty likely to start from the bench. 

We suggest borrowing a million quid and betting on neither Demel nor O'Brien to score. 


Thursday 27 November 2014

Red Fury Follows Clatt's Latest Spat

Sheeran: Poptastic!

Hammers and Shatcar Denis fans were united in their anger this week as both had to come to terms with the frustration of being on the wrong end of a level five 'Clattenburging'.

The Premier League's most volatile referee followed up his dreadful performance at Goodison Park on Saturday, wherein he failed to maintain control of an ill-tempered affair while also allowing Everton an obviously offside goal, with another stinker in the Champions League.

The ever-busy bumbler found himself in the Ukraine on Tuesday night where he followed up Saturday's debacle by missing an obvious hand ball on the line by a Bilbao  defender just two minutes before time!

Clattenburg will likely need to give evidence to the FA after they launched an investigation into a melee that occured during Saturday's game - principally provoked by Clattenburg's inability to halt a tide of increasingly nasty challenges by the unchecked Everton players, possibly because he had mislaid his yellow card and lacked the balls to go full red on Naismith / McCarthy / Mirallas each of whom could have easily been sent marching by another referee for rash challenges.

Clattenburg is no starnger to controversy having been suspended earlier this month for showing an unusual interest in ginger pop stars by failing to observe proper post match protocol and rushing off to attend an Ed Shearer concert in Newcastle. A source close to the club has threatened to leak to the FA that Clatts also has an extensive collection of Simply Red CDs - a revelation that would likely result in a life ban as the FA continues in it's campaign to stamp out the growing ginger-popstar scourge that afflicts the modern game.


Howes the Hero in Latest Lion Taming!

Sam Howes: Lion Tamer
After all the irritation of another tiresome Goodison experience, Hammers fans will be cheered by the performance of our development squad who thumped lowly Millwall 8-7 (after penalties) in the 'Premier' League cup clash held behind closed doors earlier this week. 


Oops!
The two teams battled to a 0-0 score at the end of 90 minutes. Fred Onyedinma then fired The Lions ahead in extra time But almost immediately West Ham levelled through the ever-rising star that is Jaanai Gordon.


Pardon me, Sir!
In a thrilling finale, Hammers keeper Sam Howes emerged as the hero finally breaking the deadlock by saving the sixteenth spot kick of the penalty shootout!


Get outta my back garden you ruffians
The outcome was hardly surprising given that at full squad level West Ham are well ahead in matches played over the years with 9 wins, 11 draws and 5 loses in 25 fixtures. A full list of the fixtures is provided below for those Hammers who feel the need to luxuriate in the moment!

For poor Millwall this signals the latest disappointment in what looks like becoming a nightmare season for the club as they seem destined to face the drop to football's third tier where they will likely join tragic Sheffield United and possibly be accompanied in the drop by Wigan. 




West Ham United versus Millwall Full match history 


Season
Date
Home
Score
Away
Competition
2011/2012
Sat 04 Feb
West Ham Utd.
2 - 1
Millwall
Championship  
Sat 17 Sep
Millwall
0 - 0
West Ham Utd.
Championship  
2009/2010
Tue 25 Aug
West Ham Utd.
3 – 1 (AET)
Millwall
League Cup  
2004/2005
Sat 16 Apr
West Ham Utd.
1 - 1
Millwall
Championship  
Sun 21 Nov
Millwall
1 - 0
West Ham Utd.
Championship  
2003/2004
Sun 21 Mar
Millwall
4 - 1
West Ham Utd.
League Division One  
Sun 28 Sep
West Ham Utd.
1 - 1
Millwall
League Division One  
1992/1993
Sun 28 Mar
West Ham Utd.
2 - 2
Millwall
League Division One  
Sun 15 Nov
Millwall
2 - 1
West Ham Utd.
League Division One  
1990/1991
Sun 24 Feb
West Ham Utd.
3 - 1
Millwall
Second Division  
Sat 10 Nov
Millwall
1 - 1
West Ham Utd.
Second Division  
1988/1989
Sat 22 Apr
West Ham Utd.
3 - 0
Millwall
First Division  
Sat 03 Dec
Millwall
0 - 1
West Ham Utd.
First Division  
1978/1979
Mon 14 May
Millwall
2 - 1
West Ham Utd.
Second Division  
Sat 07 Oct
West Ham Utd.
3 - 0
Millwall
Second Division  
1947/1948
Mon 01 Sep
Millwall
1 - 1
West Ham Utd.
Second Division  
Mon 25 Aug
West Ham Utd.
1 - 1
Millwall
Second Division  
1946/1947
Sat 25 Jan
Millwall
0 - 0
West Ham Utd.
Second Division  
Sat 21 Sep
West Ham Utd.
3 - 1
Millwall
Second Division  
1938/1939
Mon 27 Mar
Millwall
0 - 2
West Ham Utd.
Second Division  
Tue 27 Dec
West Ham Utd.
0 - 0
Millwall
Second Division  
1933/1934
Sat 03 Mar
West Ham Utd.
1 - 1
Millwall
Second Division  
Sat 21 Oct
Millwall
2 - 2
West Ham Utd.
Second Division  
1932/1933
Tue 31 Jan
Millwall
1 - 0
West Ham Utd.
Second Division  
Sat 17 Sep
West Ham Utd.
3 - 0
Millwall
Second Division

Monday 24 November 2014

Tomkins seeking move to La Liga

Julio Tomkins
In the latest evidence that mighty West Ham are preparing for the challenge of European football next season, Ace defender James Tomkins took the opportunity to practice the European art of feigned facial injury during Saturday's match against Everton.

Widely castigated by pundits, including the majority of Hammers' fans, Tomkins has opted to remain silent on the issue. Given the unchecked and escalating nasty physical nature of challenges from the Everton camp (Naismith maiming Noble, McCarthy clattering Amalfitano, Mirallas leaping into Amalfitano) maybe Tomkins thought that the only way to waken dozey ref Mark Clattenburg up from his daydreams about upcoming pop concerts was to take a dive. 

Taking a leaf from Ross Barkley's book, who earlier managed a triple twirl and double pirouette after a non-challenge from Kevin Nolan that WAS spotted by Clatts, Tomkins merelt chose to highlight the increasing blight of referred pain injuries. Moreover, as a top international model, he is extremely sensitive to peri-facial movement.

Either way, maybe if Clattenburg had taken some control of the game earlier then perhaps Tomkins might not have felt the need to resort to such drama. 

Sunday 23 November 2014

Clattenberg Plays a Blind..er?

Grrrrr. Predictable or what? Another frustrating trip to Everton where all we get for our efforts are a load of bruises and the mistaken belief that justice balances out in the end!

As if it wasn't annoying enough to watch Everton steal yet another unjust victory against us at Goodison Park yesterday, this intrepid Hammer made the mistake of watching the highlights on Match of the day where messers Lineker (WTF is that 'beard' about?), Shearer and Savage were falling over eachother to praise the excellent piece of refereemanship Mark Clattenberg displayed for Everton's second goal. The ever eager to please Savage even cooed that  "Clattenberg has played a blinder there".


Blind indeed - to the blatant foul on James Tomkins at the very beginning of the break away. 


It's an unusually smug facial expression for one so prone to error
Blind indeed to the sequence of outlandish challenges from the home side -  James McCarthy got away with a stoopid lunge in the first half that only served to encourage the Toffees to chance greater and greater degrees of violence. Kevin Mirallas should have been sent to the showers for his lunge on Morgan Amalfitano which he then audaciously followed up with a shove on James Tomkins. For sure, Tomka did exaggerate the extent of the contact, which our MOTD heroes focussed in on rather than Clatt's failure to punish excessively aggression. Even Roberto Martinez recognised that Mirallas had totally lost his composure and withdrew him a few moments later. 

Blind indeed to Ross Barkley's hilarious diving antics. That's cheating. In contrast, James Tomkins is a top international male model and thus uber-sensitive to peri-facial contact of any kind. Either way, Everton started it....nuh nuh!

Blind indeed to Everton's offside first goal. Schoolboy stuff. Truly dreadful. Lukaku was more than a full metre offside and the lead up play had been in the vicinity of the incident such that the officials should have had a perfect view.

The problem with Clattenberg is that too often the story of the games he officiates turn out to be about him and his decisions (or lack of them). 

So, the Goodison woe continues. It really is our unluckiest away ground. As for the Toffees, to paraphrase Robert Banks i am beginning to develop and irrational hatred of Everton.

One positive: Mauro Zarate reminded us that we have a lot of attacking options in the current squad.   




Saturday 22 November 2014

Noble Finally Gets England Call Up


The longstanding saga of Mark Noble's international allegiance looks like it will finally be settled over the coming weeks as rumours gather that the West Ham midfielder, bizarrely overlooked by the myopic England football manager Roy Hodgson, will finally get the full international call up that he so craves.

Noble has been patiently putting in the hours while less able midfielders (insert any of England's midfield from the past 3 years) have been honored with the opportunity to wear the three lions. Rather than letting his continued non-selection get to him, Mark heads to the water where he has spent most of the free time that comes with the all too frequent International breaks. 

All of this practice has propelled Noble into the limelight for a place on the England squad where it is expected that he will be a shoe in for a place on the England Carp Fishing Team who are presently licking their wounds after finishing a disappointing 18th out of 20 finalists at the recent world championships!

Never mind lads, at least that's better than the Noble-less Soccer team did at the recent world cup.

P.S. Mark, the fishing in Ireland is sensational. I'm sure Martin O'Neill would allow you some time out between training to try out the rod in Irish waters. 

Hammers Can Take Goodison by Storm

Wanna piece of this or what?
Goodison Park. Hmmm. Not a happy hunting ground for our beloved Hammers. With the departure of Miserable Moyes, we might have expected an improvement in our fortunes against Liverpool’s second club, but alas Martinez’s troops have continued the woe. We have even managed to add an annoying habit of throwing away winning positions against possibly our biggest bogey team over the past decade.

HOWEVER, today represents a fantastic opportunity to finally get one over on the sticky Toffees. In many ways, we are the new Everton, including in terms of our Premiership position, but mostly because we are tight at the back aligned with pace up front, especially on the counter attack. We go to Goodison with more confidence than at any time over the past decade, and maybe it can be lucky 13 for us as we have not won now in 12 consecutive meetings with Everton.


More than a few scores to settle
Much will hinge upon which side is more fortunate in terms of players returning from niggles – Everton have a host of ‘half’injured players who may or may not figure, while the Hammer’s main concerns are up front with both Sakho and Valencia possibly missing. Andy Carroll waits in the wings - a pretty decent replacement to have on hand!

Stewart Downing is back from his pointless midweek adventure during which Mr Hodgson again demonstrated how ill-attuned he is to what’s going on by playing Downing in his old role rather than the more central position wherein he as been in scintillating form all season. Inevitably, England got the old Downing in terms of match performance. Even worse, it appears that he picked up an injury to add to the annoyance. Tssssssss.


Today’s game offers a wonderful opportunity to examine just how good our current side is. In particular, our full backs have been a revelation – both slotting in seamlessly and providing solid competitive defensive duties along with a level of attacking guile that we have not had from our full backs for many years. HOWEVER, Baines and Coleman both provide a benchmark for our youngsters to aspire towards.

Aaron Cresswell will hopefully have watched Scotland versus the Republic of Ireland last week where Seamus Coleman was given a torrid time by Hull City’s Andrew Robertson who kept the young Irishman on his back foot. Meanwhile Carl Jenkinson will be hoping to put a stop to Satan Baines’ habit of scoring against West Ham. Avoiding conceding silly free kicks around the box will undoubtedly help in that regard.

Elsewhere, let’s see how well Everton can engage their short passing game in a midfield that will likely be populated by a highly mobile Hammers trio of Mark Noble, Cheikidh Kouyate and Alex Song. Rory Nostradamus says a draw is a good bet as these sides look evenly matched on paper, but bearing in mind that what goes around comes around, we are undoubtedly overdue a little luck at Goodison and could pinch it 2-1.

Finally, let's spare a thought for Pat Partridge who passed away earlier this week. Hammers fans will recall his stewardship of the 1975 FA Cup Final with fond memories. Pat was one of those referees who made sure to let the players know who was in charge and would not have tolerated some of the guff the current lot endure. Rest in Peace.