Jacob Ramsey’s eighth-minute goal for Aston Villa immediately sent the mind to thoughts of what a big job West Ham boss Graham Potter has on his hands.
Unwind the low-key mess of a thoroughly uninspiring second half of the season under David Moyes last year and an even more miserable first half to this campaign under Julen Lopetegui.
Whether it was the disruption and emotion of Tyrone Mings’ worrying injury, the exertions of a Europa League trip that have seemingly affected them for much of the season, or West Ham’s muscular efforts robbing the game of any fluency…Villa spent much of the game looking nothing like the side that had made such a blistering and promising start to the game.
The third factor is a compliment to West Ham, to be clear. In their final few months under Moyes and throughout their time with Lopetegui at the helm, you would have expected West Ham to allow goals two, three, four, five, perhaps even six to follow.
West Ham sit alongside Ipswich and Southampton in the small club of Premier League clubs who are yet to claim a win from behind this season; they’d only managed so much as a draw on three prior occasions.
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As such, getting his side willing to play ugly is not a bad place for Potter to begin. Both sides’ frustrations at the physicality of the game were evident here, but ultimately had a levelling effect against a nominally superior Villa side who looked increasingly rattled.
That approach also made the game a difficult watch watch, of course and not just because the two sides’ kits were inversions of one another – an irritating phenomenon that makes you understand why international football has those stupid light/dark rules. The word ‘scrappy’ does not do justice to this encounter. This was several degrees up from a scrappy do, which we suppose makes it scooby.
The primary concern for Villa beyond the dropped points is of course the worrying loss of Tyrone Mings to another knee injury, the extent of which they no doubt discover until after the mandatory anxious wait. The centre-back only returned from over a year out with an anterior cruciate ligament injury in October; he and Villa will be hoping for nothing like this time.
Villa moved Lucas Digne across to centre-back in Mings’ place – Ian Maatsen taking over on the left flank – and at least provided some entertainment to the neutral with his consistently terrible work on the ball.
Digne could consider himself lucky to get the opportunity to do even that. His petulant elbow into an opponent’s bread basket while waiting for a set piece to be delivered earned a VAR check, which surprisingly came back all clear. We look forward to Arsenal fans somehow being more upset about that than West Ham supporters in the mailbox.
But the incident also stood as a testament to how West Ham had forced the game to be played on the terms they wanted. Emerson’s headed equaliser 20 minutes from time came as no surprise, and it was the visitors who looked the more likely to get the winner they briefly thought they had in fact got with the last kick of the game, only for it to be ruled out for offside.
Potter had his celebrations cut short as a result – but he will still go away pleased that his side showed a side of themselves that they have too rarely exhibited over the past year or so. It’s not pretty, but it’s a start.
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