Our final preseason fixture kicked off at the London Stadium which pre-game saw us announce the signing of Mads Hermansen with the Dane putting pen to paper this morning before the fixture.
Our lineup started as the same we put out against Bournemouth which’ll most likely indicate we will start the season with the same lineup with the exception of perhaps Hermansen taking the number one spot.
A few chances here and there but the first half was fairly dissapointing, a decent chance for Ward-Prowse whom had about 20 corners and free kicks across the entirety of the match which all led to nothing.
In addition to our dismal first half, Giroud would continue his scoring ways against us with a phenomenal acrobatic strike into the top corner… he is 35 so fits the criteria, wondering as to why we didn’t go after him.
The Hammers went into the second half down by 1 but all to play for in order to win the elusive Boyle Sports cup.
We started to look more lively in the second half which saw us create even more chances and persistently put Lille under pressure, apart from one or two close chances, the French side were outplayed in the second half by the unchanged side.
Our breakout would come just after Jarrod thumped the crossbar from a ranged effort, with Soucek driving the ball across the 6-yard box into Fuller who’d end up taking the game to penalties.
Hearts racing as the fans roared to see the Hammers fight for their first silverware of the season, but hearts would stop as Fullkrug’s bottom left corner penalty was saved, leaving Potters side trembling with no more mistakes able to be made.
As all hope was lost, Areola peeled back his memory to remember Hermansen has taken the ‘1’ off Fabianski, and with no Fodderingham in sight, the Frenchman made a superb back to back penalty save to secure West Ham the Boyle Sports cup and give the London Stadium its first of many cheers this season.
However, in all seriousness, it was a fairly poor first half followed by a much better second half and the penalty shootout gives the players some confidence coming into the new season.
The hunt for the midfielder begins and hopefully after Hermansen it’s not stopped, the feeling of needing a new midfielder hasn’t disappeared despite the result.
Comments
Potter
How long is it going to take before you realise that JWP(Just walking pace)Soucek and Rodriguez cannot run they are playing walking football in the Prem and so the same problem is going to exist.....Soucek/JWP bench players nowadays Rodriguez just has to go he brings nothing to the side.
I am not 100% sold on the system he is trying to get the team to play and with the opening fixtures we have he will have to learn to adapt PDQ if it goes pear shaped.....i do not think we will get relegated but FFS sort out the middle of the park will ya.
Get used to it
Like Moyes, Potter only knows one way of playing football. And it's not pretty.
I've been saying it about
I've been saying it about Soucek for the last 3 seasons ,championship at best ,as for JWP his name precedes him from when he was at Saints ,Sky blew him up like a balloon cause of his remarkable free kick ability .