Irons 1 Manchester United 1
Heartbreaking doesn’t even get close …that was about as hard to take as it gets!
One of the poorest Manchester United teams ever to turn up at the Boleyn rescued a point in the 92nd minute via a goal from Danny Blind they never deserved to equalise Cheik Kouyate’s brilliant 49th minute effort.
Emergency defender Kouyate had collected a Mark Noble free kick with two touches, turned and fired home off Blind. Great goal!
The Hammers had been at their best throughout with the old firm of Enner Valencia and Diafra Sakho back in business.
Valencia was the man of the first half and looked an entirely different player with his mate alongside him whilst Sakho showed all the industry, hard work and ball holding abilities in the second to show why he has become such a hero.
And given that he hasn’t started a game since New Years Day, no praise is high enough for a guy who has all the potential to become an Irons legend.
Alex Song made a horror start passing to van Persie in the area but Kouyate came to the rescue, poking the ball behind for a corner.
Song almost made amends when clipping the ball forward to Valencia, whose powerful shot needed a decent save from de Gea down low to his left.
The goalkeeper had to be at his best soon afterwards to tip over from a Tomkins header. And he saved his team for the third time when he stopped a Tomkins header with an outstretched foot.
United looked a different proposition after Kouyate’s goal with Falcao slicing wide and Tomkins stopping a point blank van Persie shot.
But Jenkinson was desperate unlucky when a brilliant curling cross deceived everybody including De Gea before sliding inches wide of the far post.
Falcao missed the chance of the match when in a one on one with Adria from close in managed to slice wide – astonishing miss.
And with just six minutes left the Irons should have made it safe when with his first touch as a sub Matt Jarvis cut back a great ball for Mark Noble but he smashed his shot straight into De Gea’s midriff.
It looked as though we would hold on but with two minutes of the four minutes of extra time played, tragedy struck.
The ball was thumped into our penalty area Blind provided a left-foot finish volleying into the bottom right corner .
An absolute nightmare moment but take nothing but joy from this performance and why? We played football again with the midfield working the ball into the two front men rather than going back to front.
This is surely the way we must go!
Who gets dropped when Carroll is fit again?
Lets stop talking about Carroll, we have 3 very good forwards, but Carroll has to be no 3 as Enner and Diafra are absolutely brilliant. Even though Nolan played ok today, two changes for Wed bring Reid in for Nolan with Kouayte into midfield. I would bring Amal in for Downing to give him a rest. Excellent performance and the fans go home happy.
I caught an interview from BFS on the way home saying we played so well because we passed the ball through midfield & the movement & pace of the front lads was excellant.That we didnt just launch it from back to front & this was what made us play so well.
I guess come Southampton Wednesday he will have forgotten this statement & Carroll will be back in.Though i dont think even Sam is dopey enough to do that,is he? 😉
Shame about the equalizer but i loved the way we played again,the lads up top just ran their defense all over the place.We all new Valencia would be a changed man once he had Sakho back with him.I thought they were both top draw today.
One thing is certain: West Ham can’t play without Sakho and Valencia together. They give another dimension to our attack. Even if Sakho today didn’t paly his best match, the playing style is nice, fluent and we create more scoring opportunities. Today I’ve seen my ideal team, except Nolan (honestly he didn’t play bad today); I would like to see Amalfitano instead of him or Kouyate when Reid and Collins will come back. But Carroll has not to play.
The real question now is, what will Sam do now to get his favourite player back in because one thing is sure, he will somehow. I must admit to being surprised he didn’t today. Then perhaps that would have been too much even for home
I posted before the game that if Nolan or Carroll could walk they’d play and Nolan could.
What I really don’t understand about Nolan is not that he plays but he plays a full game when he obviously can’t.
Here’s a question for the stat. Fanatics. Has anyone ever checked to see how many times we have coughed up a goal in the dying minutes of a game. Just like all the others you could see that one coming today. It was as inevitable as the sunset.
Missed a bit out. Should have read “I must admit to being surprised he didn’t find a way to keep the door open by only playing either Sakho or Valencia as a lone striker”
If BFS does not continue with the way we played today then the 2 Dave must step in,
The proof was there today that with the class players we now have at the club we can not go back to the long ball game unless like United we bring AC with 20mins to go looking for a draw when everything else is exusted,it’s up to AC and KN to change and adapt not the others to play to accommodate them,
This is how this great club is supposed to play and even if we don’t win the fans are happy being entertained,
Great day for us all well done everyone for a day to remember.
I think Mark Noble summed iit up perfectly in his post match interview when he said that it just shows how far the club has come in a year when we are dissapointed to only draw at home to Man U!
Me? I’m just ****’ in gutted!