West Ham Sink Norwich and Soar in their Player Grades

With pressure mounting on West Ham for a strong performance, Michail Antonio and the lads showed up and dominated the now relegated Norwich team. What a match!

Nervous heading into the matchday, nervous when the team selection came out, and nervous when West Ham and Norwich kicked off. All of those nerves, thought, melted away with Antonio’s early opener and non-stop performance.

His strong solo performance topped the match but a really galvanizing attacking display sees the rest of the team, barring one exception, excel in this match’s game grades!

Lukasz Fabianski – 10/10: Fabianski had exactly nothing to do in this match, but he did it well. His distribution was on point, he made saves when he needed to, and he came off his line quick when called upon.

Ryan Fredericks – 8.5/10: This may have been Fredericks’ best performance as a Hammer, outside of his perfect 10 rating match to end last season. He was fast, he was cutting, he overlapped well, he assisted, and he showed off his pace with defensive coverage. Stunner.

Issa Diop – 7/10: He had an assist to his name and a clean sheet as well, still he looked a little shaky. He finished strong and that’s all the matters, this was a step in the right direction for sure.

Angelo Ogbonna – 9/10: Hard to have anything poor to say about him this season. He rarely makes mistakes and he closed down Norwich players further up the pitch to stymy any sort of attack they could muster. Great game again.

Aaron Cresswell – 4/10: The worst player for the Hammers and quite possibly overall in this match. He was slow, he didn’t cover his side well defensively, and he almost scored an own goal if not for an offside decision. Not the answer.

Declan Rice – 7/10:  Not his best performance but he made some great tackles and ball recoveries in the midfield. He was more of a background player but showed up when needed the most and was a rock in the midfield.

Tomas Soucek – 7/10: Much like Rice, Soucek wasn’t called upon much in this game so it’s hard to give them a stellar rating simply based on their own usage. He was solid yet again and is integral to this team’s survival.

Jarrod Bowen – 8/10: A little better finishing and this match ends 7-0 with Bowen getting a hat-trick as well. He was a sparkplug and ran Jamal Lewis ragged all match long. A little tighter on his finishing and he would have been a perfect 10.

Mark Noble – 7/10: He got caught in possession a few times and looked slow in the attacking midfield role, but Noble did his job well today and added an assist to his name as well. He also quite literally was teaching Diop how to rotate and move on possession passing plays. Leader.

Pablo Fornals – 7/10: Not his best performance but far from a weak link. Fornals needs to be played centrally and with Noble in that role he didn’t get a real chance to make an impact where it mattered. He tracked back well and hustled hard all match.

Michail Antonio – 11/10: That rating may be too low, but Antonio was firing on all cylinders tonight, scoring all four goals for the Hammers, leaving in the 76th minutes. He was quick, physical, and a bully on the ball. Since the restart there are few players who have been so impactful and Antonio is a must-start striker right now.

Subs

Sebastien Haller and Jack Wilshere came on in the 77th minute, Yarmolenko and Masuaku came on in the 83rd minute, and Balbuena came on in the 87th minute. None of these players had an impact on the match due to poor minute management from Moyes. Antonio needed to come off after his third and Cresswell should have come off at halftime.

Still, the team showed up and played really well and we should be happy and proud of that. Antonio’s marquee performance could be the cherry on the top of a stressful yet positive end to the year. Farewell, Norwich.