West Ham Twitter was buzzing after Tottenham “bottled” their League Cup draw with Colchester, dropping out of the tournament on penalties. 24-hours later, West Ham were embarrassed by an Oxford team that made the idea of penalties a laughable afterthought.
The toxicity of social media was never more present than after West Ham were thumped 4-0 by Oxford in the Carabao Cup. The team, while strong on paper, were thoroughly dismantled in the second half, ending one deep cup run Irons supporters were promised prior to this year.
Slagging off players, calling for the review of the manager, calling out the owners, even cutting ties with 21-year old Nathan Holland after his 55th-minute sub for Sebastien Haller. Twitter warriors find ways to work criticism into any West Ham performance so this childish reaction wasn’t largely surprising, but calling out Holland? Grow up, people.
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Holland made his seasonal debut in this team and within a the Hammers. The youngster had a strong first half, according to Sam Inkersole of Football.London, creating a handful of goalscoring opportunities before he was subbed for Haller early in the second half.
This Irons team was playing a League One opponent with a team full of senior players except for Holland. Explain to me how the young prospect is at fault for this one?
It appears Masuaku, Diop, Balbuena, Zabaleta, and Sanchez were to blame for their constant defensive lapses in this match. Without a stream or radio connection, it’s hard to comment on the flow of the match, however, with 17 shots (9 on goal) from Oxford, it’s pretty easy to intimate that the defense was a complete shambles.
It appears the Twitter ranting of Tottenham bottling it prior to the Hammer’s game was premature. Nothing says small club mentality like focusing on another team’s failure before your club has even played their match. The chants in the stadium of “Tottenham lost to a zoo,” while funny, were premature and forced karma to drop on West Ham in this match, bringing an intensified and worse spotlight on this club.
This Cup run is over far too soon, but the match is played and we move on now. Bournemouth were also bounced from the Cup on Wednesday and will be looking to get back in the win column as well. West Ham will need to focus and play their game of attacking football, not letting Bournemouth dictate play like Oxford did in the second half of the prior match.