{"id":9164,"date":"2024-02-10T16:31:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-10T16:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9164"},"modified":"2024-02-12T12:31:56","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T12:31:56","slug":"keep-alive-the-spirit-of-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9164","title":{"rendered":"Keep alive the spirit of \u201935"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>And so the London Stadium on Sunday afternoon to take on West Ham United in the 151st encounter between these two teams founded by Victorian men who worked iron on opposite sides of the Thames.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a id=\"VbO4JwJ-SIl2_3f9Ck1a8w\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1985640742\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'VbO4JwJ-SIl2_3f9Ck1a8w',sig:'2w06lirZkX536D3fA1NPxwTwVzVrx1tTP-b8kee3h7w=',w:'594px',h:'363px',items:'1985640742',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" async=\"\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p>The glow of last Sunday\u2019s glorious triumph over Liverpool still warms. Yet therein lies a danger. West Ham were our next opponents after we had soared high in the 1-1 draw at Anfield in December. We came down to earth with a thud, losing 2-0 in a game we should have won 3-1.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that was not the only time. In April, we followed a hard-fought draw at Anfield by dropping two points against the Hammers in another game we should have won comfortably, having been 2-0 up after ten minutes, even with our Starboy missing a penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Previously, our form against West Ham had been solid: 24 wins and only two defeats in a run of 31 games going back to 2007, when we lost at home to a Bobby Zamora goal. All together, now:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><img alt=\"\ud83c\udfb5\" src=\"https:\/\/fonts.gstatic.com\/s\/e\/notoemoji\/15.0\/1f3b5\/32.png\">When the ball hits your head and you\u2019re sat in Row Z, that\u2019s Zamora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or, if you prefer the later version, \u2018If the ball hits your car as you pass QPR, that\u2019s Zamora.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Overall, we have lost only 37 of the 150 games. That included the first league match, in August 1923, against a West Ham team newly promoted from the old Division Two. The Daily Herald\u2019s correspondent was distinctly unimpressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>It can hardly be recorded that the football displayed in the West Ham United\u2014Arsenal match at Upton Park last evening was the standard looked for when First Division teams meet. The amount of scientific play seen was small, and too often, players failed to place the ball with judgment or keep it down.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>West Ham won 1-0. Fletcher, \u2018<em>a local, not really worth his place<\/em>\u2019 (there just was no pleasing the Herald\u2019s man), scored the only goal, a tap-in after our keeper, the five feet eight and a half inches tall Jock Robson, let the ball roll under his body. The Daily Herald was far more interested in the county cricket at Lord\u2019s that day, with Surrey losing eight for 44 after a thunderstorm that struck when their score was 187-2 to give Middlesex an unlikely two-run first-innings lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The historical footnote to the (football) game is that Samson Haden made his debut. Perhaps not a name familiar to many \u2018holics, the Barnsley-born former coal miner was one of the first teamers to survive the transition from the Knighton to Chapman eras. A broken leg ended the left winger\u2019s time at Highbury after four seasons and 88 appearances. He provided the cross for Charlie Buchan\u2019s first goal, costing Chapman \u00a3100, as Buchan\u2019s \u00a32,000 transfer from Sunderland contained an add-on of \u00a3100 for every goal he scored in his first season. He got 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regular readers of the GHF Predictathon updates will know that our opponents are annoyingly exceeding the low expectations held for them at the start of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After their 14th-place finish last term, the flight of their captain to a proper club and the uncertainty over the continuing employment of their manager (once, incredibly, seriously spoken of as a successor to Arsene Wenger), the consensus among Predictathon players was for 15th this season, with three predicting relegation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus, it is somewhat of a surprise to see them sitting in seventh, partly on the back of the 11 goals of their leading goal scorer, Jarrod Bowen, and partly on the contributions of two of the players acquired with the money we gave them for Declan Rice, the Ghanian international attacking midfielder Mohammed Kudus (six goals) and Southampton\u2019s James Ward-Prowse (five goals and six assists), who has become their No 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To those, add five assists by Lucas Paqueta, formerly of Olympique Lyon and now a rumoured target of Manchester Cheaty, and the newly borrowed Kalvin Philips, who travelled in the opposite direction in this winter\u2019s window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The attack has managed a middling 36 goals in their 23 league games to date, but West Ham ranks 14th in the league for shots taken and 15th for shots on target. The defence has conceded the same number, not a formula for winning games consistently. With three points from their past four league games, scoring three and conceding six, they have stalled, although theirs has been a season of fits and starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet they are difficult to beat at the London Stadium. They have lost only two of their 16 home games in all competitions this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moyes will set up with his preferred 4-2-3-1, ready his team to sit deep, be physical and look to score on the counter and from Ward-Prowse set pieces. This season, the Irons rank second in the league in goals scored from counterattacks (seven). \u2018We\u2019ve scored goals against [Arsenal], and that would be the key again to give ourselves a chance,\u2019 Moyes said in his pre-match press conference, demonstrating the tactical acuity for which he is famous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cutting Bowen\u2019s supply lines will be part of his opposite number\u2019s tactical plan. If Bowen doesn\u2019t score, West Ham tends not to win. He has scored just once in his team\u2019s run of six games without a win, although playing him at centre forward out of necessity because of Michail Antonio\u2019s knee injury does him few favours. Nor does the loss of the still-injured Paqueta\u2019s creativity. Both men miss Sunday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In last weekend\u2019s game at the Old Toilet, Bowen had a couple of chances but fluffed them. West Ham had other chances to score but did not take them either (no goals from 22 shots). The Red Mancs were clinical (three goals from 12 shots), but the scoreline flattered them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of the two ex-Gunners now sporting claret and blue, we are more likely to see Mapravanos than Fabianski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the first of six games before we visit City at the end of March, from which we could get 18 points and probably will need to if we are to win the title. However, each of the matches is a potential banana skin in their different ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reading the runes of Arteta\u2019s pre-match press conference, Zinchenko is unavailable. Jesus is 50-50 and Saka is fit after his latest round of kicking. Partey has had another setback. Tomiyasu has returned from the Asia Cup and faces a late fitness test. I am guessing he will start on the bench. I think Jorghino will stand down to let Havertz revert to his left-sided eight role, and Eddie will lead the line if Jesus doesn\u2019t make it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">White   Saliba   Gabriel   Kiwior<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Rice   \u00d8degaard   Havertz<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Saka   Nketiah   Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The atmosphere at the London Stadium will be much quieter than the Ems a week ago, but the team must not let that dull their enthusiasm. We need to avoid repeating December\u2019s slow and aimless 90-minute meander around the outside of Moyes\u2019s well-organised defence. An early goal will make all the difference.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, no slip-ups, please. Anything less than three points will be a disappointment, not season-defining, but slicing our already slender margin of error even finer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we win, it will be our fourth-straight league win at the start of a calendar year for the first time since 1935 &#8212; a season in which, I scarcely need to remind you, we ended as champions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enjoy the game, \u2018holics, near and far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>And so the London Stadium on Sunday afternoon to take on West Ham United in the 151st encounter between these two teams founded by Victorian men who worked iron on opposite sides of the Thames.&nbsp; Embed from Getty Images The glow of last Sunday\u2019s glorious triumph over Liverpool still warms. Yet therein lies a danger. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9164"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9164"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9170,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9164\/revisions\/9170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}