Reading 1 West Ham United 0

It was a weekend full of goals, thrills, spills, you name it. Even Fergie managed to get up Pardew’s nose and put in a mention of his famous ref pushing episode. The weekend wasn’t so good for the Hammers though, was it?

We got blindsided by the Royals and they took us cheaply with a cheeky 1 nil win. The winning goal came courtesy of Russian signing Pavel Pogrebnyak after 5 minutes! This left me with a question; what did the Irons do to redeem themselves for the rest of the match?

The games are ticking by and I’m running out of excuses. I know we’ve got injury problems and we’ll probably make up a shed load of points towards the end of the season but to lose 1 nil away to bottom feeding Reading – it’s not good lads.

I’m not even going to blame Collins for his faux pas that led to the Russian’s goal either. Haven’t we got enough firepower to stick a couple in at Reading’s end? Reading have only managed 1 point in 8 outings so it couldn’t have been that difficult, could it?

Ok, rant over. Vaz Té was a welcome sight back in the ranks and he nearly made it one goal apiece with a missed header towards the end of the game. Reading hung on for dear life as the hammers were all over them like a fat kid eating a Happy Meal!

Royals boss Brian McDermott had this to say after the game:

“It was a resilient performance. They put us under pressure with a lot of balls going into our box and it was a real physical game.

“The goal that Pavel scored was a terrific finish one-on-one. I know Collins made a mistake but Pavel had to finish — and it was not an easy finish.

“He’s not had the opportunities because we haven’t created the chances for him we would have liked. But when he does get a chance he hits the target.

Reading took control early on in the match and the Hammers’ frustration came to a head when Mark Noble was booked by ref Michael Oliver for a silly tackle on Royals’ Jimmy Kebe.

The second half saw some more tantrums when big lad Carlton Cole tussled with Alex Pearce and appeared to kick out — but the ref apparently didn’t see it.

After the game West Ham manager Sam Allardyce admitted:

“We’re looking over our shoulders cautiously because we don’t want to get drawn into a fight at the bottom.
“Now we really need a win against Norwich on Tuesday.
“My problem is getting my best team out and I haven’t been able to that because of the injuries.”

I think we can all agree with big Sam. Let’s put this one behind us and get ready to face Chris Hughton’s Canaries – over and out!