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Injuries & Goals Galore As London Stadium Finally Roars!

nevillenixon's picture
Submitted by nevillenixon on Sun, 19/03/2017 - 12:10

Given that their team were 2-0 down after less than ten minutes and that their 'new' captain lasted only until the 18th minute, the crowd at West Ham's london Stadium could have been forgiven for 'doing a highbury', but the exact opposite happened. After the initial shock of going behind and losing Winston Reid the crowd suddenly found it's voice, a voice which easily drowned out the predictably boring chants from the Leicester City fans and filled the air with the sort of intimidating atmosphere not experienced during a day time match since the club left the Boleyn. The 'tourists' that left at half time, presumably to go and see a West End musical or show, deprived themselves of seeing a stirring fightback that eventually fell short of the mark due to profligacy in front of goal but mainly due to the brilliance of Kasper Schmeichel Leicester's goal keeper, without his services Hammers could have and would have won, but gifting the opposition a two goal start always had Slaven Billic's new look team on the back foot. Talking immediately after the game he said: “It is very frustrating for us to lose the game. We didn’t start well and what is really disappointing is the way we conceded three goals. The first goal was very sloppy, two goals from set pieces, we knew they are very good at those and we needed to defend them but didn't. We deserved something from the game, we created lots of chances. In this league you can’t afford to be 3-1 down and try to turn the game around, but they showed character, the last 20 minutes the ball just didn’t want to go in. You can call it poor finishing but we have to give huge credit to Kasper Schmeichel , especially for the save to the last chance from Andy Carroll. What gives us hope is our performance in the second half, we were good with and without the ball, all we needed was to add is goals.”
On the injury front he said: “It doesn’t look good with Winston he pulled his abductor and had to go off, when there is no contact and a player has to go of it doesn't look good. Now it looks like Michail won’t be able to go with the England squad, he felt a hammy [hamstring]. We have to assess them next couple of days, hopefully, they will be fit after the international break, we are also waiting on news regarding Pedro Obiang, it was a tackle on his ankle and he is not the one who comes off easy but we have to see in the next couple of days.
We knew Leicester were very capable, not even last year but this season, they had it in them with Ranieri and the game against City, in the Champions League as well but, this team looks different now. They are the same players but they look better, it was a surprise. Very few things surprise me nowadays in football but I think they won today because they had to fight and they did that because they have momentum. Unfortunately, we don't have any over our last three games.
So a tremendous game, a bunch of injuries, three points lost, but an atmosphere found! Priceless - Ed

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darrenharry's picture

The atmosphere in the TB Upper was its usual melancholy interspersed with random clapping. Few bubble and Irons and that was it. To be fair it did improve in the 2nd half but it didn't feel special ALA the Palce game.
Funniest moment was the Leicester fans reprising the "ooooooooo argh - your shit arghhhhhh!" To Randolph. I haven't heard that in 20 years! Block 114 retorted with "what the f***in ell is that?!"
I'm afraid half a performance isn't good enough in this league. More worrying for me is the lack of high intensity, pace, stamina. Snodgrass and Byram seemed to be wearing diving boots.
Too little too late in my view.

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plaistow-man's picture

Only saw the game from a link but I thought Byram did well especially as Snodgrass (brought in to take players on) did the exact opposite and kept looking for young Sam to put in a cross, maybe Snoddy should have switched to the left. Masuaku I thought did a decent job and we did squander a few chances and taking away Schmeichals two excellent stops from Carroll, Andre Ayew should have buried his strike with the goal gaping and he knew it. Lanzini did well but I thought in this game Nobes would have been perfect first half yet out of place in the second.

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139 users have voted, including you.
darrenharry's picture

He was constantly crouching, gasping for breath. Whether he's struggling with a knock I don't know, but he struggled. Snodgrass didn't look interested. Arthur was decent when he came on and I'd start him over Cresswell now. Too many passengers this season.

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149 users have voted.

Byram looked so unfit and it was the most obvious lack of fitness that I have ever seen in the PL, apart from Benni McCarthy....
Arthur is a class act for me and a very good buy, one game apart, and he played well.

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98 users have voted.
Dartford Bhoy's picture

At half time I heard boos and was just waiting for that old Upton Park faithful.. "what a load of rubbish!2 to start ringing out! lots of disgruntled fans, this was Leicester not Man City that gave us the run around. We really struggle against passing teams, no one to put a foot in and win the ball. Ferenades and Masuaku looked better and made challenges but Byram, Fonte and Snodgrass couldnt tackle a hot lunch! I agree with Darrenharry, the lack of intensity and pace was appalling and this was without Mark Sloble! I think the miss from Vardy helped us, they could have been completely out of sight and this is us at home, its not good enough. Five PL wins at home is criminal. The defence is poor and this has been known for a long time. We have been screaming for a striker that never materialised and need a decent Keeper, neither Rudolf or Adrian are PL. Also feed up with hearing from Sullivan each week apologising saying that its not acceptable, well do something about it and stop your petty propaganda via Jack the lad oh, and does anyone believe we have an additional waiting list of 55K people wanting seasoning tickets?

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