It would be very easy to feel sympathy for Robert Snodgrass right now but he wouldn’t say thank you for such an attitude.
Snoddy is a fighter and will need every ounce of his spirit for future battles as he watched his new club sink to the first defeat of a Premier League by a lower league club in this season’s FA Cup tournament – beaten by humble Blackpool.
Manager Sam Allardyce was forced to bite the bullet as his new outfit were beaten on penalties after twice coming from behind.
Knowing Snods as an eternal optimist, he will probably see it as an opportunity to concentrate solely on escaping relegation.
However, it’s a setback to the former Hammers contingent at the Hawthorns which includes the manager and former Academy product Grady Diangana.
And they will undoubtedly be in militant mood when they come to the London Stadium in a fortnight’s time with a deadly escape mission on their hands.
BFS will be quite happy about being knocked out of the cup since it’s all about premier league survival. Snodgrass will score against us for West Brom guaranteed. Always happens when former players come back to play us.
Legitimate use of Big Sam once more! Delighted to see Little Sam, Sammy Lee, helping out at WBA yesterday. This management team used to be terrific. Hope they still have the magic. Lots of time and respect for these guys. Wish them well – but not against us of course.
COYI
We needn’t be scared of Snoddy’s pace .. We need to exploit the fact that his legs have gone, especially in the 2nd half, by attacking his side .. He scored a brilliant goal on Boxing Day 2019 v Palace, but was gone for the last quarter of the game when Palace scored two .. What we must not do (but will we?) is concede corners and free kicks .. You can bet your life that this is why BFS signed him and BFS will probably have signed some aging, but tall, powerful players to get on the end of set pieces by the time that we play them ..
As a long-time Hammers fan I still remember BFS last season where we were well placed at the beginning of January and then kind of fizzled out – so I will only relax when we have sufficient points (45) to be certain of not being relegated – until then I regard WBA as a potential relegation rival so we need to beat them (hopefully twice this season) – once we have done that I will not mind if they are rescued by Snoddy or Grady (I am not sure how much game time he will get under BFS)
Makes you wonder why we let Snoddy go straight away – he could have still gone in the window, but we didnt need to invite a potential red face moment did we? It’s not as if we were getting a bag of cash for him! Still wish him well, but not against us!!