Diafra Sakho’s 88th minute strike gave us a win to celebrate at last but make no mistake this was hard, desperate and ugly against one of the league’s poorest sides.
With Sam Allardyce under enormous pressure for his job defeat or a draw today would have been entirely unacceptable and the manager knew it – Sakho has saved his bacon for now.
The striker fired home across keeper Pantilimon from a fabulous Noble ‘dink’ unto the box to have Allardyce celebrating as if the team had won the Champions League.
In fact we’d beaten a very poor side who should have been there for the taking.
We deserved to win on the balance of play and given that ref Lee Mason turned down clear penalty appeals when Nolan was clearly fouled and the ball brushed Adam Johnson’s arm.
Nolan said afterwards he believed it was a pen and added: “It wasn’t our best performance of the season but we’ll take it,
And Mark Noble added: “We played really well against Man United, Spurs and Chelsea without winning so I’m over the moon today.”
Sam Allardyce had stressed a win was of total importance and said it didn’t matter how it came but the first half had us all wondering how that would ever be fulfilled.
Former Iron Jerman Defoe in fact blasted wide from close range after being left alone following a huge hoist out from the back.
Sakho – who battled brilliantly without a lot of support – saw a fine header fly wide and a 25 yard drive from Song brought a decent save from keeper Pantilimon.
Sunderland had their moments with Connor Wickham impressive but the Hammers – whilst never at their best – worked hard to the end for Sak to grab his 12th goal of the season.
Relief yes…pleasure NO. For so long there was no real plan, purpose or power but what we do have is that man Sakho.
Allardyce took a little pop at Karren Brady in his post match interview after her morning comments when saying we’d been under performing.
He said: “She’s wrong! We haven’t been under-performing. We’ve been under-results getting!
Err we centainly under-performed today but give thanks -we’re on our way again…HOPEFULLY!”
We underperformed and got the points today
Just got on-line after the match, almost left before the goal, so glad I waited
COYI
3 points we are safe but same old dross,
What a lovely sight we score and BFS rises to his feet to claim our administration as his brilliant tactics work again,
2 wonderful subs Cole for Jarvis and Nene for Nolan and then the norm O,Brien for the goal scorer so we can hang on for 3 points ( brilliant )
GIVE THE MAN 2 More years and treble his wages.
This is getting boring
Wow,that was painful viewing.Never thought we would score & i think i have frost bite in my toes thanks to the tedium of it.Goal papered over the cracks basically.Play one upfront,long balls to Sakho in the first half which is absolutely not what he thrives on.A milliin crosses with no one in the box.We only had one striker,so no surprise really.Then the genius realizes that playing two strikers & Downing in behind them might just work in the second half.Think it may have worked before but i cant remember.Oh yeah thats right,the first 3months of the season.I knew i had seen it before.If i didnt love West Ham so much i would bin going to watch Sams garbage,but i cant stay away.I dont care whether Sam lovers come on saying he delivered again,that WAS poor,poor stuff today.Oh & it was really flat in the ground as well tonight for large amounts of the game all BFS fans who love him so much but never go to the matches & sit through his tedious,boring style of play.Eight games & counting,pls davids dispense with the clown!
It wasnt cold Ty,you tart,lol,you want me to buy you a woolly pair of socks & get you some Alex Song gloves 😀
Do you all realize that being thankful we won might be the worst thing you could do and that we might have been better off losing.
If, after all that has happened this season we wind up with Sam for next season, one thing we can all project with absolute certainty is that our strike force will be Carroll on his own upfront, Nolan behind him and the rest fitted in around those two
I dont think performances like that are going to do anything to improve Samasaurus chances of getting a deal,we may have won but i dont think the board would have been exactly jumping for joy 😉