This was Crewe all over again – but worse. A first half in which we dominate and should have been out of sight, followed by three second half goals that you just can’t understand how we contrived to concede.
The line-up was a bit of a surprise. Still no Breen, which is getting increasingly worrying and Macateer back. It really shows how desperate we are that we have to throw in Trigger when he’s had so little reserve team run outs to get back to match fit. I’d have preferred to have seen him in central midfield – he played sort of out right – but Thirlwell in for the nacked Healy was the obvious move. That meant an attacking Oster was over to the left but he played a fairly free role. Maybe that was our downfall – the very things we need to do to score mean we are going to have greater exposure at the back.
Early on the benefit of having someone who is prepared to get forward to support the forward men was shown. Smith did well to take the ball round the defender and James to the bye-line at the left of the six yard box and get a ball across – in many recent games that would have been into empty space, this time Trigger managed to charge in and hit the back of the net in front of the magnificent travelling 3,000 fans.
West Ham had their chances up front but we felt confident that we could win this one. Confidence levels went up through the roof after about half an hour. Stewart shot from the right and James couldn’t hold the slippy ball (it was absolutely throwing it down for a lot of the first half) and Stewart followed in to win the ball (we all looked anxiously at the ref – it was no foul but refs rarely let you win a challenge with a goalkeeper) – it squirmed across and someone (Whitely say the papers) had a shot blocked but it came to Oster at the left side of the six yard box and he made no mistake. Ah joy, two goals – now we could show them how to defend.
Half time heard cheers from the red and white army and boos from the ‘ammers. The start of the second didn’t give any indication that things would be much different. I’d predicted a 3-0 win in the pub before the game and my main worry was that we’d overshoot my target. Whitey had an excellent shot hit the underside of the bar and come crashing out and then it all went wrong. West Ham brought on Brian Deane (grr, grr) and Don Hutchison. If the players were half as scared of this as us in the stands (Deane always does us in and Hutch is still a class act) then we were in trouble. Unfortunately they were twice as scared as us. The lad behind me from the moment he appeared on the sidelines was shouting “get Deane, get Deane”. I heard you mate – I don’t think the players did. But then who exactly was to “get Deane”. We needed him man marked for 10-15 minutes by a big guy – but there was no obvious candidate. Kyle was brought on a bit later and some were shouting at him to do it but for god’s sake he’s a striker. I would have brought on Babb. I know, I know. But if he’s good enough to get on the bench (for the first time since the beginning of the season) then you have to use him – and bliddy hell, we’re talking about Brian Deane not Ronaldo. Anyway, Deane is on – ball gets lumped forward, Deane does cushioned header, that little git Defoe stops waving to Alex Ferguson long enough to shoot and score. Shit, here we go. And so we did. Defoe scores again and suddenly all that good work is for nothing. We were stunned.
Actually we still could have won it. Stewart in particular did well to dribble though into the box and with a shot either side of James would certainly have scored – instead he tamely lobbed it into his hands – thus negating the good impression he’d made on us by making our second goal.
Macateer had gone off for Kyle and someone (Smith? Stewart? I can’t remember) went off for Butler. It made no difference.
How truly depressing. We need to get out of this slump. A finish in the playoffs would put us in a good position for a push for promotion in 2004/05 but we have no chance of such a finish if we can’t get three points out of games we’re winning 2-0 at half-time. Let’s hope for 9 points out of Franchise and Bradford at home and Rotherham away. No reason we can’t do that and it might get us back on to the sort of run we were on up to and including Sheff U away. Well we can hope