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Hammers avoid humiliation but City a class apart

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Manchester City 2 Irons 0

By Hugh Southon

Fine performance from Declan

Well it wasn’t the battering many had expected but there’s not much to say beyond that!

Manchester City controlled the game – as expected – from start to finish and completed the victory via goals from first and second half strikes from Rodri and De Bruyne.

They were denied a penalty and created a bunch of chances which went begging often more by luck than judgement.

But having said all that to keep the scoreline to just a two goal difference will create some confidence in the Hammers camp.

Avoid a humiliation at Liverpol on Monday night and we could be reasonably well placed to push on with the survival bid over the last 11 games.

Declan Rice was my man of the match for us whilst Tomas Soucek was very effective and has a nice habit of getting into the box on some long raking runs.

We didn’t see Jarrod Bowen until late on but he showed enough to suggest that he really is going to be a very tidy signing for the club.

Still in the bottom three but no worse off than we were this time last week and it’s now all about getting Liverpool out of the way without it turning into a disaster.

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Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!"

Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

22 comments

  • Keithsickofexcuses. says:

    The questions that occur to me are:
    Why did we play over a half a match without a real Striker ? Antonio crosses were wasted.
    Why did we play our defence so narrowly, when City love to run the wings ?
    Why did we put on an old man in Zab , that City knew backwards and why did he take a position higher up the pitch than the Right Full Back position, when the second goal was scored ?

  • golfeater says:

    i feel sorry for fans paying to see this rubbish week in week out.
    What a waste of an opportunitity 60,000 fan stadium, money to get the best and now looking at relegation.

  • Ken says:

    Abject performance. No ambition other than to avoid another 4-0 defeat. What sort of mindset is that? Bowen should have been on from the start. All this crap about taking time to settle from the Championship yet he showed more movement and ability in 12 minutes than Snodgrass showed in 78. No outlet except long ball for Antonio to chase which just invited wave after wave of City attacks against one of the worst defences in the prem. As for Noble far too slow and caught out of position so many times with poor distribution.
    If we are going down at least show some fight and desire. Our fans showed more pride on a cold Monday night singing Bubbles right at the end than the whole team. Rice and Soucek were the only bright spots on yet another awful night for the team. Moyes shows again why he was the wrong choice.

  • GaryD says:

    They held the line and defended better than in recent history. Against a lesser team we would have counter-attacked more effectively. Offence sells tickets, defence wins trophies.

    The only injury was to someone whose brain fart resulted in the first goal. Hope they play the youngster again when they meet LVP.

    Lost to a club that cheats. There were lots of positives, including the away fans singing at the end of the match.

    COYI!

  • Matt says:

    We conceded less than we normally do against them at least. Aside from that according to BBC we had 6 touches in their box, 22% of possession and only 169 completed passes. Rodri alone made 178.

    • blimey! says:

      Not forgetting Rodri managed to cynically take our the right back and break his arm without picking up a card….. Genius

  • Che says:

    More luck than anything else it was ‘only’ 2 nil.

    Honestly it was pathetic, we are not a league one side looking to scape a cup game. We have some dangerous players (on the bench!) and city are not the same force as last year, and vulnerable at the back.

    Unfortunately inviting them to attack over and over with little to offer in return will only get you beaten.

    Poor

  • Sullywhu says:

    I’m with Wembley… I to am embarrassed…was embarrassed to watch it…we are the slowest midfield in the league and cannot counter attack. Only Rice looks in a top 6 side class… Its going to be a long and awful watch till the end of the season…well keep the faith 🤞 abd hope fir the best ⚒️⚒️⚒️

  • Hammersmiff says:

    Hugh, you seem reasonably satisfied that we only lost 2-0 and honestly believe that a mauling like that (it could easily have been 6) will ‘create some confidence in the Hammers camp’? You must be on planet Moyes in a land of negativity, cautiousness and zero ambition!
    Your next target for a team in dire relegation trouble is to ‘avoid a humiliation at Liverpool’ which is exactly the same as what Davey Boy was inferring in his post match interview.
    Every game we play is now absolutely vital, avoiding humiliation in both games = 0 points, what a ridiculous way to approach a game of football. You’re entitled to your opinion but frighteningly, the other bloke who thinks exactly like you is in charge of the team!!!

  • mark wiggins says:

    Moyes is a big problem why leave it until 80 mins before putting Bowen on a d no Anderson. Moyes is so negative he’s brain dead terrible manager .

  • Hammerkip says:

    It was horrible…nothing personal but when we start saying its ok we only lost by 2 goals ,I just cant deal with that …we lost the game before a ball is kicked …Norwich spurs and few others didn’t have that mind set and look what they got …makes my blood boil…..so weak minded its embarrassing

  • Clacton Rd Iron says:

    Truly awful.

    Nothing we haven’t known since October –
    Fabianski, Rice & Antonio can’t compensate for the other eight talentless, gutless, money grabbing ***** they are – Snodgrass tries but he is at best a half decent League One player.

    Rotherham away with a nice day out at the races in Ripton is the best we can hope for 2020/21

  • hammers64 says:

    Damage limitation is all you can say.Never gonna score with that starting 11.Luckily for us all the teams around us have to play city and liverpool still but we really need to start winning some games and fast.Pace with Bowen,Antonio and Anderson will be crucial for the run in.

  • Alan wallace says:

    Pointless on so many levels, if we are saying let’s keep our confident is what we actually playing for then we are doomed. Be competitive, so many so called lesser teams have given man city a game more then we did tonight. The game plan as I said previously was not to concede, with five minutes in you could see it was what we predicted. Why not surprise them that’s how shock result happen, desire and will should be a given not sure it is.

  • Kevin says:

    Not much you can do against the class of City with our squad . Next up Liverpool 😱
    Nobody could Have realistically expected Us to get a point despite all the hope of a surprise.
    So , it’s a case of getting the Liverpool game over with and see where we go from there .
    COYHammers

  • TommyD says:

    I’m sorry, but this was just about as bad as it gets for me. I don’t mind being second best to Man City but to not even have a go- it’s just depressing. A team so defensive that the only obvious goal tonight was to avoid a hammering. Well we achieved that but lost any credibility we may have had along the way. And haven’t proved we are capable of anything better when it’s required against so called beatable opposition….

  • Julian Woodhouse says:

    Sorry bit that was abject and pathetic. The team was beaten before we set foot on the pitch. Moyes saw to that with his set up. This was never a game we could win on paper and his tactics saw to it that we wouldn’t on the pitch either. Why we didn’t give it a go I don’t know but Moyes is not the answer

  • Wembley1980 says:

    Depends on your personal interpretation of Humiliation! I’m embarrassed for sure, anyone watching will say West Ham are awful and they’d be right. A couple of decent individual performances but by far the worst TEAM in the league.

    • Alan wallace says:

      I agree, from what I’ve seen us an Norwich are the worse teams in the league. I can honestly say that Norwich have been unlucky with a few result as well.

      • blimey! says:

        Unlucky… Norwich, sure, but what about West Ham??
        4th worst in the league with -4 VAR decisions, and worst at giving up points from a winning position at 19… 19 points from being in the lead…

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