As the week closes out, let’s give a final look back on the West Ham and Crystal Palace match. Although it wasn’t an easy one for the Hammers, lessons can be learned and its time to move on.
Last week we sat down with The Eagles Beak a fellow FanSided account to ask some West Ham v Crystal Palace questions before the match and as promised, here are the post-match questions.
What was your overall perception of the match?
A decent game, both sides played some good stuff at times and for us in particular, it was interesting to see how we coped without the suspended Luka Milivojevic. West Ham certainly did not show that they were on a good run and have performed better this season but you have to give credit to Palace for stopping the midfield and stopping the supply line to the lone striker for the most part. To be honest, Palace would have taken a point but we just about edged it.
Who did you think was the MOTM?
The hosts looked fairly lackluster and it is hard to choose a player that really shown, so you have to look at the heart of the Palace defense with Martin Kelly and Gary Cahill but the player that put us in a position to win the game was Vicente Guaita.
He made two point-blank saves that he probably did not know an awful lot about but he was in the right position at the right time and stood firm to deflect them. His ability to turn defense into the attack has also been underrated and is always looking at where the ball is going to go even before he makes a save something.
Did either side really want a win?
There is no doubt West Ham wanted to keep the good run going particularly at home, all teams want to win any game they go into, right? It just wasn’t quite working out other than for a couple of very good chances and an excellent opening goal. I did expect you to push on from there and make it difficult for us but thankfully you ‘handed’ us a route back in which we deserved on the balance of play.
Begrudgingly, yes, not so much in the heat of the moment as there was plenty of frustration that no Palace player had put a foot in to break up the play but you have to give credit where credit is due, it was a very good goal We can give you that one seeing as we went on to win the game! It is frustrating for sides like us if Manchester City or Liverpool had scored that, it would have been raved about for a long time …
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Palace got the VAR decision, obviously, but do you agree with what you’ve seen all season with VAR?
For every success with VAR decisions this season, there are ten failures to overturn a decision. This one rightly went our way and it is the first real VAR decision that we have been involved in this season but there is a sense that VAR does not want to change decisions of referees made on the pitch which I thought was the whole idea.
The officials need help, they cannot see everything and VAR really has to start making those decisions, not by highlighting errors, but by making sure the right calls are made. It should quicker and more simple than they are making it and hopefully, that will come with time but the jury is still out at the moment.
The Hammers might be on an international break but with the lads already back to it, one can only hope of a swift turn around from this debacle. Next week is Everton away and time for the Hammers to return to their winning ways.