Saturday Morning Fever

I’m on the 07.57 Grand Central train heading up to the homelands and there’s a good number of West Ham fans onboard heading for the cup match against Hartlepool. That’s an early kick-off and will hopefully provide us with some enjoyable pre-match entertainment. There’s no alcohol on sale and coffee is the order of the day judging by the hangdog faces all around me. The stories about Kenwyne going to Spurs have reared their ugly head again and I’ve the horrible feeling that they’re going to make us an offer that can’t be refused. Bent is no slouch by any description but he ain’t our Kenwyne. At this early stage it seems certain that some more peripheral players will get a run-out this afternoon what with Nyron and Rico being injured, Tainio being banned, McShane being cup-tied and the Fulham match coming up in three days’ time. Malbranque will surely return and probably McCartney will come in. I’m hoping, as ever, to see Chopra come on and grab a goal or two as he enjoys big occasions and hopefully Healy will have another chance to show us what he can do. Santa Cruz will be the danger man for Blackburn and unfortunately for us Jason Roberts won’t be playing. It’s getting like Groundhog Day with us and Blackburn and surely we can’t play them five times this season so I’m predicting a 2-1 victory.

The Match

I chatted to one of the London Branch lads as I left Sunderland Station and he said he wasn’t bothered what the result was. I have to say that many others must have had similar thoughts as the crowd was only twenty-two thousand or so and the atmosphere was hardly passionate for most of the game. It took twenty minutes before a chant worthy of the name managed to emerge. We didn’t exactly play badly here but we hardly created any goal-scoring chances. Our best came two minutes from the end when Edwards and Chimbonda combined well down the right before the latter shot wide and really should have done better.

We started with Healy and Chopra upfront but it took me a long while to identify the new-look Chops, and I wasn’t the only one adrift in the sea of empty red seats in my end of the East Stand who wondered who our number 16 was. They both had some creative moments but Blackburn’s big defenders coped easily with nearly everything they came up with. Blackburn had two good chances in the first half with Fulop, who’s getting better and better all the time, making a good save from Santa Cruz and the other being blocked in stoppage time while half the crowd were downstairs trying to get warmed up a bit. Collins looked great to me and hardly put a foot wrong while Edwards is definitely getting back to his best. He provided some much-needed threat down the wing and was in the thick of the limited chances we managed to create. Leadbitter, who was captain for the day, also played well and he asserted his presence. I don’t know why we didn’t bring Cisse on for the last fifteen minutes or so as this game had 0-0 written all over it a very long way before the end and so what did we have to lose? Whatever interest our fans have in the F.A. Cup could perhaps be fanned by a very attractive draw for the next round but as it is I can’t imagine there’s much enthusiasm for the replay of this game in early February.

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