So another game at White Hart Lane and another victory for West Ham. I can’t explain how happy I was the day after at work. In fact I felt even better than after the 3-0 game, earlier in the season.
To defeat them on their own ground twice in one season is real humiliation for them. I would also like to say to the Sam Allardyce haters out there at least give him some credit for masterminding these victories against our bitter rivals. If someone like Alan Pardew had achieved the same thing we would be worshipping him at his feet. Even if you are against him in general (which I cannot understand), then at least admit he has brought some pride back to East London with some brilliant derby wins in his time here. Look at the Millwall match with 10 men and Chelsea last season also.
I am now hoping that this latest triumph can really kick start our season and translate our cup form to the Premier League, by giving a much needed confidence boost to some of our players who have in truth underperformed this season. I am thinking particularly of the two goalscorers in the cup victory this week, Modibo Maiga and Matt Jarvis.
Starting with Maiga then, it is fair to say he has been a flop overall since his £5 million move in the summer of 2012, although he has shown the occasional piece of genius. However, he has definitely improved in the last few games he has played in. In the fixtures against Fulham and Sunderland at home in particular, I think he performed his lone front man role very well, consistently out jumping defenders to win flick-ons and holding the ball up well to bring others into play. Against Sunderland he received little or no support unfortunately, and was unable to do much because of it, but on Wednesday night in the Capital One Cup, after he came on to replace Carlton Cole in attack, he played an absolute blinder.
Once we went a goal down, Allardyce finally started to push bodies forward after 70 minutes or so of defending, and this really helped Maiga. Every ball that was played up to him he won in the air, not giving the Spurs defenders a sniff. Not only did he win the ball, but also his flick-ons constantly picked out teammates, who for once took a gamble and followed in. He set up a chance for Diame in this way before playing a major part in the equaliser. His header fell into the path of Matt Taylor who played a fantastic little ball into path of Jarvis to smash home. Then came the winning goal – a majestic header from Mohamed Diame’s cross. The cross wasn’t particularly hard, and Maiga had to generate a lot of the power himself to bury it past Hugo Lloris. It was the sort of header you’d expect from Andy Carroll.
I really hope this goal can breed the confidence to go on a scoring run, because he has shown he has the potential to do just that. The early signs are good – right at the end of the game he picked the ball up 25 yards from goal and easily sidestepped a weak tackle before unleashing a thunderbolt that crashed against the crossbar. That to me showed he has got some much-needed confidence. The old Maiga would not have been that direct.
Now to Matt Jarvis. The winger has been ok for us overall with some decent games in his West Ham career, but obviously when his price tag at 10 million plus was so high, he was going to come in for lots of scrutiny. I am really hoping his goal against Spurs can give him confidence in the same way as Modibo Maiga.
He did little else in the game as an attacking threat, but to be fair he absolutely worked his socks off for the team defensively throughout the match helping Razvan Rat against the threat of the pacey Kyle Walker and Aaron Lennon on the right flank.
Then to the goal. One of my main criticisms of Jarvis since he has been at the club is that he has been too one dimensional, just crossing (often aimlessly) into the box every time he gets possession which makes him too easy to defend against. He often seems absolutely terrified of having a shot on goal himself, even when in a good position to do so which made me so pleased when he just took the strike first time from Taylors pass against Spurs. He didn’t think and give himself time to question and hesitate, he just hit it, firm and true into the roof of the net. Let us hope this gives him the confidence to keep doing this in future matches.
I think it is now time for these two big money signings to step up in the absence of the likes of Carroll and Stewart Downing, and start to prove they were worth the money we spent on them. Frankly, if the cup game dosen’t give them that extra boost to do so, then I don’t know if they ever will.
