There was a moment last night during West Ham United’s U21 International match against SL Benfica U21 that I could watch again and again. In fact, I have. The Hammers were behind, just ten minutes left to go and Benfica are passing the ball around with confidence.
Good pressing from West Ham wins the ball back just in their own half on the right hand side. Hammers’ No.12 – Lewis Orford takes a touch to control, looks up, and hits a lofted pass over the defence into the path of striker Brad Dolaghan who takes a couple of touches and slots in past the goal keeper to equalise for The Irons.
Dologan gets the goal but the pass from Orford is something special – if you get the chance to watch it on You Tube its worth a minute of your time. (Just scroll to the 80 minute mark). The kind of thing we saw from Paquetá at his best.
In addition, Luis Guilherme looked good, scoring the first in a quality finish as mentioned last night by Gonzo: You’d hope he’d shine with a £20 million plus price tag. The chipped pass through to the Brazilian by Dan Rigge – as the commentator said at the time – was ‘exquisite’.
Mason Terry in goal looked like a saviour for The Irons early on with a string of first half saves. To think there are several Under 21’s putting in serious performances now can only bode well for the club: We rely on Mark Noble to help them find a pathway into first team football as without the European fixtures, game time for some is going to be hard to find but we must do more to hang onto these ‘baby pearls’. Some of them will need loan spells away to develop their strength and finesse their skills.
They are certainly players to watch along with youngsters Freddie Potts and George Earthy who are out on loan getting experience this season. Anyone feeling ‘down’ after the senior side’s disappointment against Chelsea would do well to watch the U21’s fightback against European opposition. If we can hang on to these little gems, The future’s bright.
And for some reason not 1 made the bench
Against Chelsea it was a bench of geriatrics
& Moyes brigade
Thanks for the link, just watched the game.
A good watch.
Though the commentator, don’t remember Chris Sutton sounding like that?
Honestly, every touch by Benfica was met with superlatives.
West Ham, “need some luck”, “on the back foot again”…
Honestly, after we scored our first I expected, “West Ham under pressure again as Benfica have the ball in the centre circle. The ref rightly awarding them a kick off. Brilliant play by Benfica.”.
Strange isn’t it, since it was West Ham tv, you think the commentator would be pro-irons. a good watch nonetheless, nice to see such attacking football.