Irons 2 Juventus 3
Match verdict
Ok, it was a pre season friendly but at last Andy Carroll showed himself as a guy who may just be the 20 goal a season striker we need so badly. It’s all about keeping him fit!
Two fine headers produced the goals that brought the Hammers back from 2-0 down, although the first needed a final nudge before one time Hammers target Zaza gave the Italians victory in the last few minutes.
But there were few complaints from most after this final work out in sweltering sunshine although once again we showed our ability to get off to seriously slow start and be forced to battle our way back into things.
AC’s goals came via great crosses from Sam Byram as a makeshift left back and skipper Mark Noble after we had been second best for the first half of the first half.
Paulo Dybala and Mario Mandzukic had put Juve into a comfortable lead with our defence looking very fragile – a situation Slav addressed by introducing Ginge and Reece Burke at right back in the second.
Dimi Payet arrived off the bench in the 75th minute to rapturous applause as a caacity crowd exervised the lungs with a quicj chorus of “We’ve got Payet.”
It would be as well not to make too many judgements as to where we are at this stage but AC was a class act and Enner Valencia worked hard on the ball, hitting the post in the first half.
Another week of tweaking and tuning, a fully fit Dimi and our new left back in place – believed now to be Arthur Masuaku along with Andre Ayew and we will be fine.
COYI
I have one question on all the transfers… (By the way I am new)
Slaven has said minimum of 5 players, well 2 of them are Ayew and Masuaku, he has also said the other 3 are Lanzini, Payet and Cresswell, (when fully fit)…. Now where does that leave Calleri? Because he technically isn’t a done deal… And still he hasn’t been including in these 5?
Yes , we need Calleri imo , what with inevitable injuries for Carroll and Sakho .
Valencia needs to be moved on .
Yeah but I think Sakho has done too much now.
Transfer request, refused to train, refused the Tour.. I mean how much can we let this guy get away with it and then carry on playing him?
When Amalfitano had one hissy fit and he was gone.
When he’s fit, he scores. Let’s just hope he stays fit!
Not fit. needs to get fit first to stay fit. The second he refused to tour we should have stopped his wages. he has effectively gone on strike. nobody gets paid when they are on strike
I must have been at a different game – Juve were all over West Ham and it was starting to get embarrassing when Juve took their foot off the pedal, made umpteen substitutions and had a look at the script (it was a friendly after all!) and allowed West Ham back into the game with a couple of soft, scrambled goals.
There was a yawning chasm in class between the two teams and it was a real treat to see Juve at barely half throttle!
Bilic has a lot of work to do – West Ham weren’t disgraced but were never really at the races!
When I go to bed every night! – I pray – Please sign Bony !! ( all our probs over – just one simple signing !! )