West Ham United 1-1 Everton
This result may be disappointing when you think about it, however I think this is a step in the right direction and was most definitely a challenging one in a rain covered Upton Park today.
The hammers have not got the best of records against Everton, with most of the recent results leaving them with the 3 points, including the last couple of game at the Boleyn Ground. So in truth a draw against one of the better sides in the league isn’t that bad at all. They have good players all over which on the whole we kept quite which again shows what this West Ham team has been transformed into this season.
In my opinion the actual match itself didn’t contain too many good things for us. One player that caught the eye was Lanzini, who scored a brilliant goal with a fine shot that he curled into the far top corner of Howard’s goal on the 30th minute mark. There is certainly more to come from the young Argentine, who will hopefully secure a permanent transfer to the club next summer when his loan is set to expire.
One other good point we can take from the game is the further more flourishing partnership at centre back between Winston Reid and James Tomkins. Even with the arrival of Ogbonna, both have showed why they deserve to remain in the starting eleven and I very much agree that they should. Reid always puts in a good all round solid performance, and as for Tomkins he continues to improve each and every game showing exactly why the fans praise him so highly.
There were also some bad things to come from the game on Saturday, the first of those was how we lost our concentration when we conceded thanks to yet another Romelu Lukaku goal. Lost possession easily and then allowed a simple pass straight through the middle of our team which ended in the equaliser. We’ve conceded far too many goals due to our own mistakes, and if we are to win more game they need to be cleaned up quickly. It’s now 7 premier league games now without a clean sheet which is just not good enough.
Another bad point to take away from the game is the injuries sustained by Dimitri Payet and Enner Valencia. Payet was taking clean out by Irish international James Mccarthy with a dangerous tackle that only resulted in a yellow card for him. Valencia who has only just returned to the first team appeared to have rolled his ankle after a tackle from Seamus Coleman in the penalty area, he was later taken off on a stretcher. One good thing potentially about these 2 injuries is that they will now have the international break to recover and get fit again, so let’s hope they’re not too serious for two of our most exiting players in the team.
There are also a couple of other things to pick up from the game, the first being that for me Andy Carroll cannot start the games, even though it’s fair to say he is liked by the fans he just isn’t effective enough from the start for us. To get the best out of him he either has to be an impact sub or maybe we should just call it quits and offload him. He encourages the long ball from the team and unfortunately for him that is not the way we should be playing.
The other point is that the team in general has looked a little tired in the last few games, and again the international break should help the player to re fuel and also bring more players back from injury to give the regular starters a rest from time to time.
Player Ratings
Adrian 7/10
Jenkinson 6/10
Reid 8/10
Tomkins 8/10
Cresswell 6/10
Noble 8/10
Kouyate 7/10
Lanzini 7/10
Payet 6/10
Moses 7/10
Carroll 5/10
Man of the match
Mark Noble for me was our man of the match player, I felt that he tried to get the ball
moving as much as possible, provided the defence with cover as he always does. Even though Lanzini got the goal I don’t feel as though he had much of an impact throughout the game, unlike Noble who performed for the whole 90 minutes.
West Ham now have a couple of weeks to rest, train and work on some things that will help return us to winning ways as soon as possible. Tweet me all your thoughts and opinions from the match and anything else surrounding West Ham @JFT08.