Invisible No Longer – Immediate impact!

As the now familiar ring of change rang through the side at half time with virtually a whole new team on display, I watched what was a pretty poor quality video-feed trying to make out who was on, who was off, where they were playing and – wow! A Paqueta-like left foot curled shot from just outside the ‘D’ nestled in the goalkeepers’ top left corner: A superb strike from – Andy Irving.

After a first half limited to a well – saved Guilherme volley and a couple of good old fashioned Cornet-offside one-on-one’s with the keeper, the Scot latched onto a rolled pass early in the second half with the accuracy of a dead ball specialist and placed his shot inches inside the top corner.

If that had been Kudus then there would have been a purr of contentment from his West Ham United fan club who are used to both the sublime and spectacular from the Ghanaian.

As it was there was a stunned silence followed by appreciative applause at the spectacle of such a classy finish which reeked of quality from West Ham’s’ ‘Mr Who’ (if not Dr Who!).

So in two halves played that is one scored and one assist from our previously-‘Invisible’ bargain Scottish midfielder. I’d always heard that there was more to come from the left-footed former Klagenfurt loanee, who is certainly doing himself no harm in the first couple of appearances for The Hammers.

A couple of sprints back to help out the defence shows he has decent pace too. Good for him, let’s see if Lopetegui decides there is enough to feature in Florida with two games against far more testing opposition.