West Ham United suffered a humiliating 5-1 thrashing at the hands of Arsenal last night despite being level pegging with the score at 1-1 at the half time interval.
Manager Sam Allardyce has a lot to answer for with a bizarre team sheet that left me and a lot of other West Ham fans scratching their heads.
Having watched the game with QPR on Saturday with West Ham laying siege to the QPR goal in the second half I, along with many other Hammers’ supporters, expected a far better show than what was on offer. However, one look at the team sheet which was missing Joe Cole, Matt Jarvis and Mo Diame for no apparent reason was mind-boggling to say the least, especially considering how well they played at the weekend.
What was just as odd were the players Allardyce brought in, with Matt Taylor a left-sided player who looked to be sitting in Mo Diame’s position in central midfield! What on earth was that about? Couple that with out of form players like Vaz Te replacing Joe Cole/Matt Jarvis then you really have to wonder if Allardyce was tripping before he named his teamsheet!
First Half
West Ham opened the scoring with a Jack Collison special in the 16th minute, with the midfielder rifling in a shot from the edge of the box, much to the delight of West Ham’s away support. Until this point Arsenal had most of the game and were applying plenty of pressure with the Hammers’ looking happy the hit them on the break.
Arsenal were not behind for long though with German international Lucas Podolski scoring a 25-yarder just 4-minutes after Collison’s opener. The German then had another golden opportunity to score but Joey O’Brien was the hero by clearing the ball off the line.
Second Half
With the score at 1-1 West Ham United fans felt that even though they withstood some Arsenal pressure in the first half we could sneak a draw or a possible win with a sucker punch goal on the break.
Arsenal though had other ideas and ripped West Ham apart with 4 goals in just 10 minutes to inflict a very heavy defeat on West Ham.
There was also 12 minutes of injury time as Dan Potts had to be stretchered off and taken away in an ambulance after receiving a head injury, he left the pitch to warm applause from everyone in the ground so lets hope the young man is OK as it looked quite bad at the time.
This break in the play affected the atmosphere and Arsenal didn’t continue their onslaught on goal to such devastating effect after Potts injury which was a blessing for our away support not having to watch more goals fly past Jussi Jääskeläinen in the West Ham goal.
So we now have a week off to get our heads right and prepare for Fulham away.
About Iron Bobby
I was at the game too chaps and if I could have kicked a ball boy I would have 🙂 Team selection was shocking… Its like Big Sam doesnt bother if it’s an away game against a better team and puts out a reserve team or players coming back from injury! Not cool!
Disgrace wasn’t the word mate! I also made the trip and thought I got robbed big time. Allardyce must pull his finger out and knock the team into shape before we end up further down the table. Disappointing match for me.
Big Sams team selection was a disgrace! I went to the game last night and didn’t pay all that money to see a second string team play!