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Key events
6 min “Just a neutral watching here,” says Samuel Jones, “but how have West Ham got to a stage where their first choice strikers are Fullkrug (32) and Wilson (33)? Is there nobody from the academy that deserves a chance either?”
I’m still waiting for Freddie Sears to make it, and not just to hear his name sung to the end of Sgt Pepper. But though I’m not totally au fait with the West Ham youth sides, it’s generally considered bad form to toss kids into a struggling side, and I think Fullkrug might be a good fit for how Nuno wants to play.
4 min So far, it’s Nuno football from West Ham: they’re sitting back and allowing Everton to play in front of them. Meantime, Gueye, making his 200th appearance for the Toffees, is wearing white tights like he’s the Prince Regent.
2 min Talking of new grounds and such, one thing I don’t like is safe standing. Don’t get me wrong, I want to watch football in an upright position, but the bars stop the rolling mauls from getting going when celebrating a goal. I’d rather fall over seats with 49 people on top of me than jump up and down on my own.
1 min Away we go!
It’s rare a manager has two spells at the same club, but David Moyes has done that at both of tonight’s teams. He’s not someone I necessarily expected to move with the times, but I was wrong; biggups to him.
Our teams are tunnelled and about to emerge into the new ground for the first time in a Premier League fixture. It’s jumping.
“During the sixties and seventies multi purpose stadiums were all the rage,” advises Mary Waltz. “Saved money, right? Wrong. It ruined the viewing and atmosphere for all the sports it hosted. In the USA it was the forced marriage of American football and baseball and the results were god awful. I fully get the West Ham rage.”
What I also find a problem in American grounds is that there tend not to be seats at pitch-level because in the NFL, teams are so big they take up all that space. I prioritise proximity to the action above quality of view, so always want a lower-tier position.
“Following you on the Villa Fulham MBM,” begins Richard Hirst, I took your word on the penalty call – marginal you said. MARGINAL! Which part of making your body bigger has ceased to apply? And it doesn’t matter that Cash’s back was half-turned, deliberate handball long since did cease to apply. No wonder Marco Silva went ape … for once I’m with him.”
This is the relevant law, with the bit I think is relevant here bolded:
It is an offence if a player:
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deliberately touches the ball with their hand/arm, for example moving the hand/arm towards the ball
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touches the ball with their hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger. A player is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiable by, the player’s body movement for that specific situation. By having their hand/arm in such a position, the player takes a risk of their hand/arm being hit by the ball and being penalised”.
I wonder if Nuno will play the kind of football he played at Forest with West Ham. I guess that’s what he does, but at the moment, he doesn’t have the centre-backs for it; i’d not want to invite pressure on Kilman and Mavrapanos, though if Fernandes and Magassa do their job, opponents will be forced to attack down the sides.
My sense is also that in Fullkrug, he sees a player he can use as he did Chris Wood; that’ll have to work because otherwise, it’s hard to see where goals are coming from.
Email! “You have a point to some extent,” writes Gary Naylor, “but, on my third visit, the new ground feels like home because it’s a distillation of the Liverpool we know. Post-industrial squalor is but a Sheedy free-kick away, industrial history is written into every brick and the shoots of a new Liverpool are poking through. But, watching the sun set over the Wirral, three miles from where I saw that image every day for 18 years, it’s so very ours.
Inside will take a little longer, but not years, months. The stadium is designed for atmosphere and you can taste it on your lips. West Ham fans will be jealous and I don’t blame them – I feel a bit jealous myself and it’s mine!”
I guess clubs in the second generation of modern new-builds have the advantage of seeing where other clubs went wrong. The first time I went to the Emirates, I couldn’t believe how bad it was, but obviously West Ham is another level entirely; there should’ve been a stipulation that whichever club took it had to knock down the athletics stadium and replace it with a football ground. I must say I loved Goodison, but I’m looking forward to seeing the new gaff.
I’ve not seen loads of West Ham this season, but I do quite like the look of El Hadji Malick Diouf. I wonder if we’ll see him and Summerville gang up on Jake O’Brien – I’d certainly be using them to target him.
Seeing as Michael Keane is playing, here’s one of my favourite goals of recent times.
West Ham, meanwhile, will look to play off Fullkrug, with Bowen coming off the flank in support while, down the left, Summerville keeps the width and behind, Paquetá prompts. I don’t think they’re anywhere near as bad as their league position suggests, but i do worry about the centre of their defence – which is why is makes sense to bring Magassa in for Ward-Prowse.
So where is the game? Everton will defend fairly deep – they’ve not much pace in the centre of their defence – and look either for Beto in the channels or Grealish to improvise. West Ham have pace at full-back, so I’d expect Ndiaye to attack the space on the inside, with Dewsbury-Hall hoping for cut-backs to the edge of the box.
I’m interested to see how West Ham’s midfield functions tonight. Obviously it’s only one game, but Magassa and Matheus Fernandes looks a better bet than Fernandes and Ward-Prowse, allowing Lucas Paquetá to concentrate on attacking. I also think Fullkrug makes more sense than Wilson; he’s a reference point at which to aim and, if they can hit him with crosses, he’s a problem for any team.
David Moyes, meanwhile, picks the same team which lost 2-1 at Anfield last weekend.
He says that you can’t do much in two training sessions, so the main point that’s been communicated to the players is effort. James Ward-Prowse, left out of the squad, has had the reasons explained and, Nuno reckons, understands the situation – or at least said he did because what else can you tell your boss? – and Soungoutou Magassa, signed in the summer, has been handed a debut because of his physicality. Finally, he went for Niclas Fullkrug not Callum Wilson because that’s what he thought the team needed – though I guess he also knows that at 33, Wilson is not the future.
We’ll talk about them in a minute, but first, Nuno is speaking to Sky…
Teams!
Everton (4-3-3): Pickford; O’Brien, Tarkowski, Keane, Mykolenko; Gana, Garner, Dewsbury-Hall; Ndiaye, Beto, Grealish. Subs: Travers, Patterson, McNeil, Barry, Dibling, Coleman, Alcaraz, Aznou, Iroegbunam.
West Ham (4-3-3): Areola; Walker-Peters, Mavropanos, Kilman, Diouf; Magassa, Fernandes, Paqueta; Bowen, Fullkrug, Summerville. Subs: Hermansen, Igor, Wilson, Guilherme, Rodriguez, Scarles, Potts.
Referee: Sam Barrott (Yorkshire)
Preamble
It’s not easy turning a house into a home, but at least, as people, we have options: whack up the LIVE, LOVE LAUGH poster, leave the lid off when making chicken stock and, if all else fails, enjoy a sit-down with the door open.
For football clubs, though, it’s all about the collective memory, which can only come with time and experiences. Leaving Goodison Park must’ve been a serious wrench for Everton fans and, though there’s a fair chance the new ground has better sightlines and stability, going to the match is about being part of something – the game but also a continuum of people and and place – which is now diluted.
It will be a while before new communities are formed and fans feel like they belong – just ask West Ham, whose move from the Boleyn Ground to the London Stadium is one of the biggest downgrades of all time. but nights like tonight are part of that process: opportunities for stuff to happen, both good and bad. Everton have started the season reasonably, Jack Grealish the step-quickener they’ve largely been without over the last few decades, and he’ll fancy himself to do something of note against the Premier League’s second-worst team.
West Ham, though, will be feeling better after replacing Graham Potter with Nuno Espírito Santo, and would like nothing more than to ruin Everton’s evening with a win taking them to within a point of their hosts. The spending and form of Leeds and Sunderland means that this season, potential strugglers can’t simply rely on promoted ones to be worse than them so, though we’re only six games into the season, there’s pressure on both of these teams – and neither can rely on home comforts to get them out of trouble.
Kick-off: 8pm
