Due to the depressing combination of living up north and having little disposable income, I seldom get to watch West Ham in the flesh. So it was even more depressing that my first trip to the London Stadium this season was to watch the hammering by Liverpool between Christmas and New Year, when the home team looked almost as bloated and hungover as I felt.
Having our asses handed to us by the Scousers is pretty much an annual event so I shouldn’t have expected any different when, in late-November, a sizeable chunk of money I could ill-afford to waste was transferred from my account to WHUFC TICKETS.
But hope springs eternal. And a lack of opportunity means that, like my gig-going these days, any live match is an event. It’s just a shame this one was more Jedward at Time & Envy than Oasis at Wembley. Judging our own progress against the champions elect is perhaps not the most constructive course of action.
Judging it against the same match from almost a decade previous is probably even more misguided. Nevertheless, that’s what I’m going to do because my last match at Upton Park came in similar circumstances.
Cash-strapped but home for Christmas and well aware it might be my final chance to get to the Boleyn, I was therefore prepared to pay over the odds to watch a game I fully expected us to lose. Happily, this encounter with the Reds had a different outcome.
In our first match of 2016 we prevailed 2-0. A glorious swansong, sort of. The match itself was actually a bit flat, certainly in comparison to the official goodbye against Manchester United.
I described it at the time as a low-quality match in which we were the better of two poor teams, and I stand by that. The stand-out moment came when Payet, back from injury, entered the fray late on and immediately nutmegged two players on the halfway line.
The atmosphere should have been better. Maybe most of the 34,977 in attendance were in a bit of a post-Christmas stupor, but when fans consistently decry the atmosphere in Stratford, I’m reminded of this and other chilly days at Upton Park that were far from blistering. Stadium vs stadium is a whole other issue though, so let’s focus on the teams.
The lack of fanfare might have been due to the Liverpool line-up containing a spine of Mignolet – Sakho – Leiva – Benteke, with support from Nathaniel Clyne and Jordan Ibe.
Virtually unrecognisable from the Brendan Rodgers/Steven Gerrard team that literally let the Premier League slip two seasons before, and in the very early stages of a Jürgen Klopp rebuild, with the German coach’s trademark high press yet to be implemented.
Looking at the teams in retrospect, the hat-trick of victories we enjoyed in 2015/16, also including a first victory at Anfield (3-0) since 1963 and a memorable FA Cup win that temporarily had us dreaming of greater glory, seems less of an oddity.
While Klopp’s early days were undistinguished, Slaven Bilić was beginning to look as super as the chant suggested. The Croat’s favoured 4-2-3-1 formation was more forward-thinking than the rudimentary Allardyce-ball it succeeded, although that Liverpool triumph was still based on getting it forward quickly and putting balls into the box for the big men.
Stripped of Payet’s flair, we’d ground out three nil-nil draws in a row in December. Things looked more promising for 2016, including a shiny new stadium. Which brings us to the recent 5-0 capitulation, witnessed by 62,476. Nearly nine years on, Liverpool are the ones in a much better place.
Klopp’s subsequent success – and Bilić’s fall from grace – is a lesson that progress rarely comes in a straight line and evolution inevitably takes time. Meanwhile, Arne Slot’s rapid improvements offer a contrary lesson that small tweaks can have a big effect.
From up high – Block 223 as opposed to the TV camera view – our lack of shape and structure was alarmingly even more apparent. The rigidity of Moyes has been replaced by a lack of continuity, with Lopetegui willing to try different combinations but seemingly no closer to finding the right balance.
Ball-playing centre-backs such as Kilman and Todibo are counter-effective when feeding a cement-footed midfielder like Álvarez. There must be a player in Rodríguez – you don’t earn 30 caps for Argentina, winning the World Cup and two Copa Américas, by impersonating a poor man’s Carlton Palmer – yet you’d never guess he and Álvarez once formed a formidable partnership at Mexican side América.
As one talismanic creative force returned at the start 2016, another limped off at the end of 2024, and the news that Bowen could be sidelined for six weeks is undoubtedly bad news, especially on top of Antonio’s long-term absence.
The January sales might reveal fresh options, but many a manager has also been known to chance upon winning combinations when their hand is forced; Bowen’s injury puts increased onus on Füllkrug, and an untried front-three of him, Summerville and Kudus is far from shabby.
Unfortunately neither wide-man, nor the supporting full-backs, is famed for their crossing ability. Ironically, the German target-man probably would have thrived on the crosses delivered by 2016-era Antonio and Cresswell.
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