Despite the complaints of a few (you know who you are ) who felt a fiver was a big price to pay to watch West Ham’s pre-season friendly against Stevenage last night, for the most part, the players, management, Board and supporters all came away happy with the result.
Of course, we all keep our fingers crossed that Airidas Golambeckis’ ankle injury is nothing serious, the teenager looked rock steady last night and every inch a first team player in waiting.
“Oi, big boy, what’s your name” rang out loud across the Lamex Stadium last night as the Irons won at a canter, strolling around the park in the first half looking relaxed and a class above their industrious opponents – which of course they should be.
It didn’t matter, The F word – ‘Fun’ – was back.
Much of the last few seasons has been tortuous, scrappy, sub standard football played by a team set out in negative formation and with survival their sole goal.
As supporters, paying to watch was akin to sticking pins in our eyes, conflicted fans turning up regularly yet hating the spectacle and hating even more that their cash in the millions was going to prop up the BS regime which was pretty universally disliked.
Taty scored in pre-season
Let’s be fair though, tougher tests await. West Ham will have to scrap like crazy to win promotion but there was a sense last night of the start of a new era, with several youngsters – Kanté, Lamadrid and Orford to name but three – offering fresh energy and even old hands Bowen and Taty looking up for the enjoyment of just playing the game again.
And no VAR made the evening complete. No messing around, no delay for celebrations. Five goals. Not bad for a fiver, I’d say!
At this rate, we might even start to fall back in love with the game again.
Good to see the squad performing well, but I thought Landers and Cummings were expected to get some minutes last night? (As reported by Matt). Were they even in the squad? Seems strange that Marshall is getting minutes before them when Nuno has already stated he is surplus to requirements!
I was at the game and the biggest surprise for me was the performance of James Ward-Prowse. He never stopped moving, looked comfortable in possession and played with a smile. Where has this version been? Orford scored a beautiful curler but like Lamadrid he loses possession deep and better sides would have punished us more than once. And yes we potentially have a first team centre back in waiting. Wise beyond his years.
Looks as though I can get the Championship games via West Ham TV.
Although the EFL website says stream games via club websites “except for games being broadcast internationally”.
Any ideas how that works if there isn’t a service in your country showing these “international broadcasts”?
Has anyone on here tried streaming Championship games in Oz with any success?
Starting to get that pre-season excitement here.
COYI ⚒️⚒️⚒️
I will be in a similar situation here in the USA. We have a streaming service that sounds like it will have a lot of the matches on but then we have to use West Ham TV or something similar for the others.