West Ham United 2 Leicester City 0: Everybody involved is taking the piss
Leicester City travelled down to the capital having beaten West Ham in each of the clubs’ past three meetings. West Ham had lost each of their past two home games to mid-table sides without scoring. Leicester had a 100% record in London under Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Easy street. Start the car. This was in the bag.
After all, Wolves lost on Tuesday night. Ipswich lost on Wednesday night. It was Boubakary Soumare’s birthday, for heaven’s sake.
Unfortunately, it was also Alphonse Areola and Tomas Soucek’s birthday.
Photo: Iain Wright
Belated changes
Forgive us the detour from reality. This has been a tough season.
Despite many of us having given up hope of staying in the Premier League, there has been an enjoyably morbid curiosity in the team news each week as various overpaid underperformers have kept their places. Anticipation reached fever pitch to see whether Ruud van Nistelrooy would stick with Jordan Ayew and Bobby Decordova-Reid.
As it turned out, Ayew was dropped to the bench and Decordova-Reid stayed in despite only having one shot in 350 minutes of league football since his late equaliser against Brighton.
Facundo Buonanotte was also in after a lively substitute appearance against Brentford and James Justin returned to the right-back position in place of Woyo Coulibaly, dropped from the squad altogether after being withdrawn at half time against the Bees.
The other change saw Caleb Okoli replaced by Jannik Vestergaard. It’s well established that Leicester have no good centre-back options but to return to the Vestergaard/Faes axis that failed so miserably at Goodison Park seemed a strange move. Especially when, other than the anomaly of the three-man back line under the now departed Ben Dawson at Brentford, Okoli has only been partnered with Faes.
Before arriving at the London Stadium, the centre-back records have seen Vestergaard/Faes concede 16 times in 8 games, Faes/Okoli 22 in 10 and Coady/Vestergaard 17 in 7. There had still only been one clean sheet, fortuitously gained with Faes and Okoli in the side at home to Bournemouth. And only Southampton had conceded more goals.
But West Ham had only scored once from an infamous 31 shots when the two sides met on Filbert Way in van Nistelrooy’s first game in charge. We clutch at such omens in times like these.
Photo: Jamie Barnard
That sparkling first half in full
Leicester won a corner within the first minute and had a shot inside the first two minutes, albeit a weak Wilfred Ndidi effort from long range. And after that opening foray, Leicester barely saw the ball for the next ten minutes.. West Ham soon settled into a rhythm, keeping possession comfortably and switching play from one flank to the other to try to exploit the space outside Victor Kristiansen in particular.
When Leicester did get out, threatening positions were quickly surrendered. Buonanotte often found himself crowded out on the right, losing the ball frequently under significant pressure. Jamie Vardy and Bilal El Khannouss both broke clear in promising counter attacks but had no support.
West Ham scored with their first attack of note, Aaron Cresswell’s cross-shot struck by Mohammed Kudus and blocked by Mads Hermansen out to Tomas Soucek who found the net from close range.
Who was to blame? Well, who wasn’t to blame?
Kristiansen and El Khannouss were weak in the build-up. Buonanotte made a lazy clearance. Justin and Faes both failed to block Cresswell’s shot. Vestergaard played Kudus and Soucek onside. Soumare ambled out while multiple West Ham players charged in to reach the ball and follow up when it came back off Hermansen.
So that’s seven of them.
Jarred Bowen scored the second goal before the break. Like so many conceded this season, it looked both improbable and the kind of goal only relegated teams concede.
Photo: Becky Taylor
And now, we move on to liars
In fact, as the first half went on, it became even clearer that absolutely everybody involved here is taking the piss.
Ruud van Nistelrooy, who always had the feel of a weird appointment given he’d been rejected by Football League clubs and been appointed seemingly on the strength of beating us twice as Manchester United manager (something even Ruben Amorim will soon replicate), now continuing to pick players that offer nothing in a formation that doesn’t suit the squad.
A bottom half team absolutely cruising against us with the air of a pre-season stroll, just like Wolves and Everton did.
Television and radio commentators putting the boot in incessantly, with Forest fans and ex-Derby players pushing the tired and misguided Steve Cooper narrative.
Birthday boy Soumare having a laugh with opponent Jean-Clair Todibo before the corner West Ham scored their second goal from.
The likes of Faes, Soumare, Decordova-Reid and almost anyone else you’d care to name picking up a Premier League wage.
Practically all the players for the lack of effort shown.
Top, Jon Rudkin and Susan Whelan for overseeing this recurring global embarrassment.
Opposition fans.
Our own fans.
Everybody is taking the piss out of Leicester City Football Club.
Half time.
No changes.
Photo: Jamie Barnard
Up for the fight?
Forty seconds into the second half, Wout Faes blasted the ball out of play on the opposite side of the pitch under no pressure whatsoever.
When, a few minutes later, Leicester did mount a dangerous counter attack, El Khannouss played the ball to absolutely nobody. At risk of being outshone, Faes played the ball straight out of play again.
Let’s remind ourselves of Top’s programme notes before the Arsenal game: “We retain absolute belief in the group of players we have and the qualities of the manager and staff around them for the challenge ahead of us. There’s everything to play for during the coming weeks, and we are all ready to fight for it.”
It’s clearly complete waffle churned out by the communications director but if you were going to lower yourself to analyse this statement, what on earth is giving them absolute belief in these players and this manager? Does this look like a club with everything to play for, that are ready to fight?
No.
In fact, within a week, the manager was openly admitting the players aren’t good enough.
It would be one thing suffering in a game against one of the top sides but in fact, the effort shown against Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal in recent months suggests they are capable of showing more commitment than this.
On the hour mark, Stephy Mavididi and Harry Winks came on for the abject Decordova-Reid and Soumare. Mavididi isn’t brilliant but he can run, unlike Decordova-Reid, and he immediately caused a bit of chaos which endeared him to the fans. Winks brought a bit of control, although he doesn’t look physically capable this season.
We had a couple of corners and a couple of shots. And we had a reminder that with a bit of effort, West Ham suddenly look less like peak Barcelona.
Photo: Becky Taylor
Surrender
Although some of them might be wondering what the hell they were thinking, the only people associated with Leicester City who come out of this evening with any real credit are the 2,000 fans that travelled to support a team unworthy of it. And perhaps, at a push, Mavididi for running around a bit, which was a significant upgrade on what had come before.
The sad fact is that Leicester City are currently synonymous with a level of patheticness we haven’t seen too many times in the recent past. This is a far worse team than the one that got relegated two years ago, far worse even than the team that competed in the Championship last season.
The gap to safety is five points but you watch games like this and it might as well be fifty. We’ve got four points from our previous thirteen games. And there are only eleven left.
Before this game, we asked for six things from Leicester City at West Ham.
Something different. Not folding if we conceded first. Blocking runners. Dealing with the main threat. Energy in attack. Wholesale subs early if it’s not working.
We didn’t really get any of them. Even these basic requests were too much to ask.
It feels like the leadership and management at Leicester City gave up a long time ago.
