West Ham 2-1 Wolves (Soucek 54’, Bowen 72’ | Doherty 69’)
LONDON STADIUM — If this is how it ends for Gary O’Neil at Wolves, he might at least have received a few words of consolation from Julen Lopetegui. This was a night of quiet triumph for a manager who knows what it is like to be put in an impossible position by his own board but it is likely only one of them will fight to see another day.
Maximilian Kilman has been far from his best this season but his presence on the West Ham team sheet was a painful reminder for O’Neil of a summer in which he lost his two best players, Pedro Neto’s move to Chelsea compounding what was already going to be an against-the-odds struggle to stay in the Premier League.
The stark truth is that defence that has conceded 38 goals this season is nowhere near good enough and there were plenty more exhibitions of that here, Tomas Soucek’s looping header from a corner far too easy for the opening goal.
O’Neil, who this week revealed he likes to drink 20 cups of tea a day, had his team kettled in their own defensive third for long spells and it ended up nullifying Matheus Cunha’s threat.
Hope has been gradually extinguished at Wolves week by week and the reprieve when Matt Doherty equalised, teed up by Rayan Ait-Nouri, was short-lived.
Yet perspective is everything after the weekend’s events. Soucek had celebrated by holding up nine fingers in tribute to absent striker Michail Antonio, who has undergone surgery on a lower limb fracture following a serious road accident on Saturday, and after curling a second past Sam Johnstone, Jarrod Bowen lifted his teammate’s shirt to the sky.
O’Neil meanwhile had been hopping frantically on the sidelines, expending every last bit of energy in what may have been his final moments in the job. Yards away, Lopetegui breathed a heavy sigh of relief but there can be no illusions in east London: the task ahead has not got much easier.
Everybody knows how important Antonio is to this club. The last couple of years have only seen David Sullivan and Karren Brady’s appalling reputation for recruiting forwards plummet even further.
Fans have been crying out for another striker for goodness knows how long – Sullivan and Brady have brought in 44 in their 14 years in the job and few have made any impact at all. They wanted signings and they signed Ings.
Part of the justification for renting an athletics stadium instead of building their own ground was that the board was “absolutely committed to our policy of providing affordable family football” but this season, tickets have reached £120 for the biggest games.
Murmurs of discontent grew even louder before this game and prompted another “Stop Exploiting Loyalty” protest outside.
Lopetegui has essentially had to wrestle with a club that slipped into the dark ages long ago. He enjoyed a £130m kitty in the summer but much of that was spent at the behest of technical director Tim Steidten.
Perhaps he ought to have known from the first phone call that no one is ever truly safe. It summed up the level of loyalty to David Moyes, even after he led them to Conference League glory, that alternatives were already being rung up well before the Scotsman’s exit had been confirmed.
So it is little surprise his successor has had to take training sessions overshadowed by reports that the board have lost faith in him. He has been put in an impossible position – much like his Wolves counterpart – and it is testament to Lopetegui that he managed to get a tune out of his players in the most difficult, emotional circumstances.
The thinking on his position has totally muddled too, with the first rumblings that he could be sacked after the 4-1 defeat to Tottenham on 19 October and again after the goalless draw with Everton before the international break.
Instead he gets another stay of execution. O’Neil may not be so lucky.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/xehQNn3
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