Matt Flack
West ham welcomed Crystal Palace to the London stadium on a horrible wet afternoon in the London capital.
Both teams came into the fixture with both teams having a welcome addition to their midfield’s, West Ham welcoming back Brazilian maestro Lucas Paqueta and Palace welcoming back defensive lynch pin Cheick Doucoure. Any supposed lift the Brazilian was supposed to bring back into the hammers midfield was clearly lost on the players on the pitch with Crystal Palace dominating from the off. Barely 2 minutes on the clock and a simple long ball pierced the hammers backline, leaving Dawson to bring down Zaha , Only a covering Zouma and the strange notion to foul early in the game meaning Dawson was spared from what should have been a deserved yellow for taking one for the team, the resulting freekick was spilled and eventually collected from Fabianski much to the relief of most around the stadium.
The lack lustre start didn’t do much to lift both the crowd or the players themselves with the eagles dominating most of the play and chances in the first 20 minutes of the game. However, not understanding the momentum of the game, with the hammers really struggling to gain a foothold in the first 20 minutes and very much against the run of play somehow found themselves in front thanks to a piece of absolute genius from the Algerian wizard Benrahma. West Ham turning over possession high in the Palace hal, Paqueta released Benrahma 25 yards out with only one thing in his mind, stepping inside and shaping on to his right foot, like so many times this season Said let fly, the ball rifling into the top corner leaving Palace and Patrick Viera wondering how the found themselves in this position given the dominance his team had shown up until this point.
After the goal the game began to open up, both teams were starting to create chances and have a spell on the ball, although the balance of play was still very much in Crystal Palace’s favour.
West Ham looked to be edging towards halftime, trying to get back in the dressing room with a 1-0 lead at the break that would have been very unjust and harsh on the opposition. But West Ham have struggled this season, teams have begun to work out David Moyes and his team. Stay in your shape press high up against the defence and in particular the full backs and you stop West Ham playing and that is exactly what they did as we crept into the 40th minute. A ball overhit pass out from the back from the usually ever reliable Dawson left Kehrer with a lot to do, Eze for palace brilliantly nipped at his heels to claim the ball back and play in the pantomime villain Zaha who was still near the box from the goal kick, and despite the shadow looming over him with his contract situation, Zaha was absolutely clinical in smashing the ball into the bottom right hand of Fabianski’s post to bring Palace deservedly level at halftime.
Ask any West Ham fan and they will with a grumble tell you they’re a second half team this season, in fact the goal from Benrahma was only the 4th they’d scored in the league in the first half this season. But apparently today no one got that message. Fans and pundits alike quiet often watch a game and say well they can’t play any worse in the second half, but this could prove to be a telling game in the reign of David Moyes at West Ham. the second half continued much in the same vein as the first, Palace winning every second ball, passing through the lines at will, West Ham struggling to get any sort of foot on the ball and have any possession outside of the allowance Crystal Palace gave them while they planned their next counter attack off a hammers mistake, which was a regular fixture throughout this game.
Chances came and went for Palace, with the most West Ham being able to muster was a few corners, one of which Dawson went into the book for after clattering into Gueita as he tried to punch a ball clear from under his own cross bar, Dawson at that point happy that the ref hadn’t booked him in the second minute.
If Moyes is to succeed at West Ham as they transition from a counter attacking team into a ball playing possession team then he has to understand that some of his old reliable players are likely to face the chop as they simply can’t play the way he wants and it finally looked like Moyes was ready to accept this as for what may well be the first time in the league this season, the much maligned Soucek, the train of west hams engine room, finally made way for the ball playing Downes. But Moyes is Moyes and the elation of the fans finally thinking that Moyes was listening to them was quickly stamped out by the realisation that on rainy afternoon when everyone had struggled to create anything Moyes took off his best attacking outlet in Benhrama to replace him with the tidy and capable Lanzini. A fine substitution had Said been playing in the number 10 position, but that belongs to Paqueta, so Lanzini was placed out on the left hand side in front of Cresswell, arguably at the time giving West Ham the slowest left side in the league. Now take nothing away from Lanzini because his introduction along side Downes gave West ham a foot hold in the game, they may have still struggled to create chances but all of a sudden, the hammers were keeping possession and starting to make the Palace midfield and defence do some work for the afternoon.
Half chances came and went for both sides, before West Ham thought they had a chance to win the game from the penalty spot after Antonio bundled into the box (Antonio on as a half time sub for Scamacca, harshly brought off). After a reasonable VAR delay, well reasonable in the sense of how long VAR usually takes, Paul Tierney was advised to go and have a look at the monitor and rightly overturned his original decision cancelling the penalty.
It felt like the game had petered out at this point, West Ham couldn’t get the bit of attacking play going again, Palace offered a few half chances but equally looked quIte happy for a point on the road after struggling to convert the array of chances they had created earlier in the game. But as the clock ticked into the final minute of added time there was a final twist in this enthralling London derby. West Ham played a long ball down the wing to release some pressure, a ball Antonio turned into an excellent one by out muscling his opponent leaving him on the floor as he bared down on the edge of the box.
As a fan you sometimes wonder if players learn from their mistakes? They have compared to the average person a very short career with many highs and lows, but you like to think that everyone is human and makes mistakes, but learning from them is what develops you as a person and player. This was one of those days when the West Ham faithful will be wondering why Antonio had learnt from his own errors.
A few years ago Antonio cost West Ham 2 points away at Selhurst Park when he should have run to the corner flag in the last minute and instead kicked it straight at the keeper for the eagles to launch a counter and equalise with the last kick of the game. A few years on he still hasn’t learnt from his mistake and almost produced an identical outcome. As said he’s baring down on goal West Ham have a 6 v 3 in the box heavily in their favour, all he has to do is cut it back to a West Ham player and at the very least it should end with a shot on goal, or he remembers his previous mistake and heads to the corner flag apologising to his teams mates saying he respects the point, instead he did, what only can be described as chipped a light pass back straight into Gueita’s hands cutting 6 West ham players out of the game and allowing Palace one final counter attack in the game.
West Ham struggled to get the bodies back to defend and an exhausted Cresswell threw a leg out a Olise’s shot only to dip it up and over Fabianski and into the net with almost the last kick of the game.
Moyes will look at this a point lost, where in it should be considered 3 points lost given the ability in both squads on show. That being said Crystal Palace were deserved winners on the day, having out fought and out played the hammers from the fist minute until the last.
The small decisions Moyes continues to stick with could end up costing him his job, refusing to play the players that suit the style play and instead sticking with the old reliable heads could very well cost Moyes his job and this could be a telling result in that decision.
