Southampton’s victory over West Ham came with more than just a little help from the Masonic lodge of referee’s, Lee Mason. His decision to award a last minute penalty for the adjudged push by Zabeleta on Yoshida condemned the luck less hammers to another away days defeat and left us propping up the table.
If ever a game though, highlighted an explanation of the mystical West Ham Way, then this was it.
Winston Reid, our best centre half gets carried off during the warm up, which leads to an instant recall for the dropped Ogbonna to partner the returning ex saint, Jose Fonte, in the middle of the defence. The game hasn’t started and the wheels are starting to wobble.
Next the first goal was scored after a poor attempt by Hart to keep it out. Adrien our former first choice watching from the bench probably thought “i could of let that one in”. Our Record signing Arnautovic, well call him Arnie for short, gets possessed by the devil and off the ball elbows a saint defender, straight red for him, He wont be back for 3 games at least.
Fonte, then hauled down Steen Davis in the box, when he wasn’t in a real goalscoring opportunity, and the resulting Tadic pen made it 2-0.
Defeat the West Ham Way
Now comes the West Ham way for me, instead of folding we get one back from Hernandez before half time, equalise in the second half from the same player, before Zabaleta leans on the Yoshi and the great recovery with ten men is denied.
The West Ham way is I believe a personal outlook on how you yourself view the club, my view is two fold. The first is, ‘What can go wrong, will go wrong’ and second, ‘Honour in defeat’.
From the jaws of a glorious comeback we penalise ourselves with a defeat.
The penalty was as soft as a penalty can be, he was never going to score, he felt a touch and fell and Mason pointed to the spot. If it denied a goalscoring chance then i can understand, but as no red card was waved Zab’s way then its obvious it wasn’t, and as such for me, Mason should of just turned away and carried on with the game.
Bitter, you bet, we did not deserve that for the way we played, instead we are left propping up the other 19 teams in the premier league hoping that our next game, Cheltenham away in league cup does not complete an away day hat trick of defeats.
I’ve seen us too many times get turned over by the lower league cannon fodder to not be worried, Sky sense that as well hence their live showing of the game, no upset is complete without the nation viewing it as well and with Newcastle away on Saturday to come, Bilic may not risk the best players, it a recipe for a typical West Ham embarrassment.
The fightback against Southampton when 2 down and down to 10 men though does show that the players are good enough to play their way out of the current mini slump, whether they do that though is something that for me, makes following West Ham frustrating and addictive at the same time, after all, Who really wants to win every week.