Taty Castellanos and Pablo Felipe are yet to open their Premier League accounts for West Ham United. Saturday’s London derby at the home of bitter rivals Chelsea would be a good time to change that.
One-time Upton Park hero Marlon Harewood, though, knows better than most the itchy, scratchy feeling every striker has when he is awaiting his first goal.
It took Harewood four attempts to open his Premier League account for West Ham United. Given that both Taty Castellanos and Pablo Felipe have played three matches apiece in England’s top flight, it would be fitting if they were to find the net in game number four just days after Harewood reflected on his late-blooming top flight career.
What is the BEST and the WORST thing you’ve seen from Pablo Felipe so far?
Be honest in the comments 👀
Nuno Espirito Santo is backing Castellanos and Pablo to come good. Harewood enjoyed similar support from the Hammers dugout when he joined too. Especially during the 2005/06 campaign which, while slow-burning initially, would transform into a bonfire of brilliant goals under Alan Pardew.
Marlon Harewood reflects on Teddy Sheringham partnership at West Ham United
The former Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa giant was speaking opposite ex-England international Joleon Lescott on the All Out Football podcast.
Harewood remembers opening his Premier League account at the fourth attempt in 2005, ending his barren run with a ruthless hat-trick in a 4-0 drubbing of Aston Villa. Thus, lighting a fire under the big number nine, and powering him to the top of the Hammers goalscoring charts.
“I think I was one of [Pardew’s] first signings!” Harewood recalls. “When I first met him, he was buzzing that I’d joined – which a manager usually is when they’re signing a player – but one thing he said really resonated with me.
“He said, ‘It’s going to be tough, but you’re going to be my number one.’
“When someone tells you that, you just think, ‘OK, I’m going to do this for him.’ And to be fair, he stuck to his word.
“I remember being in the Premier League and going about eight or nine games without scoring. When you aren’t scoring, you get all that [frustration] from the fans. It’s hard because you want it so badly, but it just wasn’t coming.
“Despite that, he kept putting me in, over and over again. Eventually, I got that first goal, which led to a hat-trick, and I ended up as the top scorer!”
Harewood finished as the Hammers’ leading Premier League marksman in 2006
Harewood’s first ever goal in the top flight of English football would be assisted by the legendary Teddy Sheringham. Even approaching his 40th birthday, the treble-winning former Manchester United forward retained the intelligence, the vision and the class which ensured he would continue chuckling defiantly in the face of Father Time.
“It was crazy, really [learning from Sheringham],” Harewood says. “You see the stature of the man and everything he achieved in his career, and there he is giving you advice. In training, I’d just watch him. As a player, you study how others do it, and his timing was just unbelievable.
“It was his thought process; knowing exactly where he needed to be. He’d see a teammate start to turn and he’d already be making his run before they’d even completed the turn. He’d made his mind up before anyone else even knew what was happening.
“He just knew how to peel off, and I learned so much from that.
“We were different types of strikers. But when I was going through a dry spell, he’d just say, ‘Your time will come. Just compose yourself when you’re through and take a breather.’ He actually set up my first goal!
“I peeled off, he headed it through to me. I chested it down, took my time, and tucked it away.”
Crysencio Summerville can make history against Chelsea
Harewood scored 14 Premier League goals in the 2005/06 season as West Ham secured a mightily-impressive top-half finish.
Not even he managed to find the net in four successive matches, though. Crysencio Summerville can join Jarrod Bowen, Jesse Lingard and Diafra Sakho in a very exclusive club if he hits the target at Chelsea tomorrow evening.
Summerville does something only three Hammers have done before! ⚽⚽⚽⚽
What do YOU think sparked his goalscoring run?
Speaking of flying wingers, Harewood names Matty Etherington as his most ‘underrated’ teammate.
The Hammers hero reflects fondly on the brief Javier Mascherano era, not to mention Carlos Tevez, but Etherington burned much brighter and for much longer than most in the mid-2000s.
“First, Matty Etherington at West Ham,” Harewood said when asked to name his most underrated teammate. “He stays under the radar, but what he did back in the day was unbelievable. He was always [creating] goals for me.
“Then there’s ‘GB’ – Gareth Barry [at Aston Villa]. He was just a different class.”
Harewood is not the only one who feels that Etherington – a jet-heeled left-winger became a posterboy for the Pardew era – gets less credit than he deserves.
James Collins saw shades of Ryan Giggs in a man who now works as a youth coach for Southampton.
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