This time there were positives, but the outcome was ultimately the same.
There wasn’t any expectation of getting a positive result against Liverpool on Wednesday night. West Ham simply don’t win at Anfield, given we’ve won just four times there in our entire history.
But all fans wanted to see was an improvement on the performance against Chelsea last weekend, which led to many fans losing their minds and calling for Julen Lopetegui to be sacked just six games into his West Ham career.
It’s not the normal reaction you would expect to get from fans of a club which has just lost to Chelsea, but it’s exactly what happened. It’s a reflection of the modern game when supporters expect success immediately and react petulantly if they don’t get it.
Anyway, there was a a very visible improvement on Wednesday night.
We took look, albeit via a stroke of luck thanks to a goalmouth scramble leading to an own goal, and looked dangerous on the break and at set pieces. Out of possession, we were organised, compact and seemed to be dealing well with Liverpool’s pace.
The Reds’ equaliser came despite there being a clear and obvious offside in the build up. For some bizarre reason, presumably to hand the country’s biggest clubs even more of an advantage (as if fixing draws and giving them early round byes isn’t enough!), VAR is not active in the Carabao Cup until the semi-final stage.
So we were robbed there, no doubt, summed up by Jamie Redknapp on Sky Sports at half-time when reviewing the first-half highlights, who said: “There’s maybe an offside in there, but we’ll let that one go.”
Their second came moments after we had a penalty shout waved away by referee Andy Madley. Conveniently I can’t find any highlight reels of the game that show it. Admittedly some fans on social media believe it wasn’t a penalty, but given the farcical inaccuracy in which the handball rules are enforced these days, you have to wonder whether luck may have been on our side with this one. Although, we were playing against Liverpool at Anfield, so maybe not.
Their third came during a really positive period for West Ham. We were keeping possession well and getting into Liverpool’s final third. Jarrod Bowen, Crysencio Summerville, and substitutes Michail Antonio and Lucas Paqueta, were all having a really positive impact on the game.
We thought we’d won a corner when a shot deflected off a Liverpool defender and Bowen cleverly ushered it out of play. The sheer fact Bowen didn’t try to keep it in play, when he was inside Liverpool’s box and had an opportunity to hold it up and put a cross in, says all you need to know about what he was trying to do, which was make sure we won the corner. But Madley, seemingly not happy with the way in which West Ham were growing into the game and threatening an equaliser, pointed for a goal kick. From that resulting goal kick, Mohamed Salah scored Liverpool’s third.
Two minutes later, Edson Alvarez let everyone down by picking up a silly second yellow card and all but ending our feint chances of causing an upset late on.
By this point, the momentum is swung back into Liverpool’s favour and they score their fourth and fifth goals in the 90th and 93rd minutes when, quite frankly, it seemed like the players had just given up all hope.
Between the red card and Liverpool’s late flurry, we did have a couple of opportunities on the counter-attack, one of which Summerville should’ve done better with when Antonio layed it off to him 12 yards out, but he pulled his effort wide.
So despite the scandalous officiating, bizarre lack of VAR and one of our players losing his head in the second half, the overall performance on the night was a big improvement on those previously, especially in comparison to the games against Fuham and Chelsea.
But this is a results business and despite Lopetegui only losing to four of the current top five teams in the Premier League, fans and pundits alike are already heaping loads of pressure on him in a way that suggests they expected him to lead his new West Ham side to victory over all of Aston Villa, Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool.
There can be not other explanation for it, to be quite honest.
Yes, there are issues that need to be fixed. The midfield was already a lot more organised against Liverpool than it was against Chelsea, which is a good sign the Spaniard has begun to find a solution to that conundrum. Defensively we need to be a lot more solid, but people forget this defence is made up two brand new centre-backs and a new full-back. But that’s my bad, we should expect them all to click straight away and be done with it.
So now we go into two ‘must win’ games against Brentford and Ipswich, and we’re not even in October yet.
As things stand, Lopetegui’s win percentage after just seven games is the lowest in the club’s history. If he wins the next two, it’ll be the second best in the club’s history, just one percent short of his predecessor.
I wonder what the feeling amongst the fanbase will be if that happens?
For what it’s worth, I think it’ll be impressive when you consider the teams Lopetegui has had to face so early in his West Ham career.
