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64 min: Are West Ham going to try and sit on this? Seems a highly dangerous game to play. Summerville shoots, and Santiago Bueno bears the brunt. Diouf, an unlikely candidate, has a dig from distance. It swings wide.
62 min: Wolves corner, Hugo Bueno taking and Krejci nods down and wide. Wolves are, after all, playing for the chance to keep hopes alive.
61 minutes: Two Wolves subs: Mane on for Gomes, Rodrigo Gomes on for Bellegarde.
59 min: Another free-kick chance for Wolves, and this one will be Angel Gomes’ last chance before he’s subbed off. It’s well hit but not on target, drifting by.
58 min: Summerville, who has looked a bit a rusty after his month out, swings in a cross that’s far too close to Jose Sa.
56 min: Wolves have dropped off from that promising start, a symptom of a season where they cannot put 90 minutes together.
54 min: Now Bowen hits the post, just as he did twice against Leeds. Two big chances for the Hammers to kill this off.
53 min: End to end, breathless stuff. Angel Gomes’s free-kick comes off the bar, and suddenly Wolves are wide open. Summerville decides to go for glory, with Sa off his line. He misses the target.
52 min: Castellanos is now booked, and his foul on Santiago Bueno looked like it happened in the edge of the box. No, says VAR.
50 min: Mosquera, booked already, is in the thick of it. He’s another on 10 yellows, and a two-match suspension.
48 min: Bowen forces a corner, and the cavalry pile forward, before Sa, with trouble, palms the ball away. West Ham looking to kill this off, having made that sedated start.
46 min: Back underway, with Pablo kissing the ball ahead of the kick-off. What luck will that bring West Ham? Bowen strides forward but this time his radar is off. That goal was his seventh assist of the season, behind only Cherki and Fernandes.
Spurs fans look away now…though read this from showbiz friend Max Rushden.
Zach Neeley gets in touch: “Not to kick them while they’re down (who am I kidding, that’s exactly what I’m doing) if Spurs are relegated, does that make St. Totteringham’s Day the first match of the season? Or do Arsenal have the greater challenge of finishing in a higher position than Spurs in the Championship?”
Half-time: West Ham 1-0 Wolves
Mavropanos’ header has put the Hammers where they want to be, a place above the drop zone, and Spurs in the bottom three.
AS IT STANDS:
45 min: It’s close to two Hammers goals. The strike pairing, Castellanos and Pablo link, and Sa has to make a fine, low save. Just a minute more in this half.
43 min: It’s been grim viewing, but West Ham have dug out a lead. Bowen, their talisman, was playing like his laces were undone, but then found his touch. Mavropanos, Mavro - Bobby Mavro? – is a fine header of the ball.
Goal! West Ham 1-0 Wolves (Mavropanos, 42)
A disputed corner, Gomes concedes, Bowen takes, the ball comes out, and is arrowed into the box, and Mavropanos nods home. What a delivery, what a header. What a lifeline!
40 min: Some nerves among the Hammers fans. Even more nerves when Walker-Peters cannot find anyone to pass to, and sends it backwards.
38 min: This is not a great advert so far for the return of the Premier League. Long throws and free-kicks, you know the drill by now. From such a moment, Mavropanos nods down and Bowen – again – can’t get enough on the ball to beat Sa.
36 min: Krejci’s long throw, flicked on and Armstrong might have done better. Though the spin on the ball was unhelpful, very difficult for the striker to get any purchase on it.
34 min: Soucek’s chip hangs in the air, begging to be attack. Nobody attacks it. The Hammers just aren’t at it. This is such a huge game. And yet.
32 min: Fernandes fouls Bellegarde, who goes down heavily. Too heavily? Jarred Gillett waves a yellow in Fernandes’ direction. West Ham get Angel Gomes’ kick clear, only for Diouf to lose possession and Armstrong to fire over. It’s all bit too loose.
30 min: Castellanos heads the ball back towards goal, and over. That looks a bit lucky for Tchatchoua, he did catch Summerville though hardly with much force.
29 min: Soucek drops deep to try and sweep up. There’s a huge gap between midfield and attack in the West Ham team. Diouf makes a long run forward, and tries to release Summerville. Did Tchatchoua foul him in the box? VAR clears it.
27 min: Tchatchoua hoiks the ball out of play. Yes, the quality is still lacking.
26 min: This time, Bowen is in the central area, and after Pablo directs the ball in his path, the shot is not hit with enough venom to beat Sa.
25 min: Bowen sets off on a sortie and again runs the ball out. Perhaps he needs to tuck further inside.
23 min: The quality on show here is….lacking so far. It’s hurried. Wolves look dangerous in attack, and in danger in defence. West Ham can’t get it going.
21 min: A foul on Mosquera from Summerville sets up chance to hit a free-kick into the box. Mosquera is booked for telling the ref a yellow should be given. He will miss the next two matches, that’s ten bookings for the season. Silly boy. The free-kick is defended well enough.
19 min: Castellanos and Krejci clash – or was it Sa? – and Taty is down. He soon recovers. There’s no time to waste for West Ham.
18 min: West Ham go long, Mavropanos to Bowen but the ball drifts out of play.
16 min: Krejci launches a long throw, and that sets off a sequence of chaos, with Hermandsen scrabbling as a header from Mosquera scrabbles wide.
14 min: A far better chance for the Hammers. Mateus Fernandes dinks the ball over the Wolves defence, and Summerville snatches at it. The best chance of the game so far falls to West Ham, despite that shortfall in possession.
11 min: At last, a Hammers attack but the ball ends up in Sa’s hands from Diouf’s cross. Their 4-4-2, with Taty and Pablo up front is struggling to keep hold of the ball. Midfield is overmanned.
9 min: Bellegarde loses the ball and fouls Soucek. That’s a booking, his fifth of the season.
8 min: Bellegarde, stepping forward into space, fires the ball over. Wolves have had 71% of possession. Is Nuno attempting some kind of rope-a-dope? Or are West Ham just rubbish?
7 min: West Ham yet to fashion anything like an attack, let alone a chance. They started slowly against Leeds, of course.
5 min: Hammers fans implore their team forward. Wolves fans tell the Hammers they’re “going down with the Wanderers”. The football family there, reaching hands across the terraces.
4 min: Wolves are going at this, Tchatchoua getting to the byline and West Ham having to hurry the ball clear. Then Andre finds space and time, and lashes a shot wide. Wolves look fresh, exciting.
3 min: Wolves start neatly, with Angel Gomes trying to release Armstrong and Kyle Walker-Peters required to come to the rescue to rob Hugo Bueno. Wolves have, let us recall, nothing to lose.
Away we go at the London Stadium
1 min: Huge roar as they get underway in Stratford. This is, as we said, massive. The London can actually be noisy, despite its bad press. The thing is, the noise can go in the wrong direction for the home team.
Charles Antaki gets in touch: “I’m confessing my sheltered life, but that’s the first time I’ve seen a photo of Danny Dyer - and it immediately calls to mind that stalwart of the Viz universe, Cockney Wanker. What were the chances?”
Am I the Guv’nor or what!?
Right, we are almost go at the London Stadium, which will house Metallica this summer. Will it house Premier League football beyond this summer? As darkness descends, the bubbles are released.
Nuno’s been speaking to Sky, and he’s got stuck on a certain word.
“Important. Important. Definitely important … All players are goingt to be important. Those that are on the bench had a big game in the FA Cup but we count on them as well.
“[Summerville] Very important. He is a very good player and we hope he returns at his best.”
Alex gets in touch: “This is dictionary definition low stakes viewing. I neither support nor have animosity toward either team. It’s approaching midday on a Friday in California. I have taken care of my big tasks for the week. The rest is just gravy.'”
Justin Kavanagh is in, too: “I like Peter Oh’s Most Interesting and Entertaining relegation candidates calculus. And he could be on to something in terms of how the Premier League’s marketing types might engineer the next era of football. I could see a mini-league within the league, whereby the newly promoted clubs and those finishing 15th, 16th, and 17th from the previous season would have complete in a Battle of the Bottom Feeders: In this shark tank, it would be compulsory to change managers every three months. Apart from anything else, think of the money they’d all save on buying out contracts of obviously silly lengths.”
Wolves haven’t played for fully 25 days, they haven’t won away for 355 days. Here’s Rob Edwards, their manager, speaking to Sky about playing West Ham.
““We have been steadily improving and becoming more and more competitive. We are seeing it on a daily basis at the training ground, which is the most important thing. The levels have gone up.
“It’s obviously a big game for them. As always we prepare for the best version of them, they are going to try to start quickly and they have got some really good players who are really dangerous. We have to respect that but also come here with what we think is a good plan and try to carry that out.”
Here’s the talk from the managers ahead of the Premier League weekend.
Just wondering how much Danny Dyer we will see this Friday night. Sunday versus Leeds bordered on the overkill.
Peter Oh gets in touch: “99.93%? To paraphrase the Jim Carrey character in Dumb and Dumber, ‘so there’s a chance of survival!’. In all seriousness, I think Wolves are by far the most interesting and entertaining nearly-guaranteed-to-go-down Premier League side in memory. If you’re gonna go down, go down playing in style!”
West Ham, after this game, have Crystal Palace away, Everton at home, Brentford away, Arsenal at home, Newcastle away and, this looks a six-pointer, Leeds at home. So yes, this is massive.
Wolves have circled the drain all season, and have just 17 points. Relegation is all but certain, it’s just a question of warding off the inevitable. They are 11 points from safety with seven games left. Opta data suggests Wolves have a 99.93% chance of going down, as close to certainty as is possible. They can get a maximum of 38 points when Tottenham, in 17th, have 30. West Ham have 29; their need is far greater, their hopes far more realistic.
Last time out for both teams:
The big news from the Hammers camp is the return of Crysensio Summerville, who was bang in form before his injury. Mads Hermansen, Pablo, Tomas Soucek, Konstantinos Mavropanos and Summerville come in as Alphonse Areola is dropped to the bench. Finlay Herrick, we hardly knew ya.
Wolves last played 25 days ago, drawing 2-2 at Brentford and playing very well once Angel Gomes came on for Mateus Mane, who looks likely to be used as an impact sub.
The teams
West Ham: Hermansen; Walker-Peters, Disasi, Mavropanos, Diouf; Bowen, Soucek, Fernandes, Summerville; Pablo, Taty. Subs: Areola, Wilson, Adama, Todibo, Magassa, Wan-Bissaka, Scarles, Potts, Kante
Wolves: Sa; Mosquera, S.Bueno, Krejci; Tchatchoua, Andre, J.Gomes, A.Gomes. H.Bueno; Bellegarde, Armstrong. Subs: Bentley, Wolfe, Hwang, Arokodare, Lima, R.Gomes, Toti, Mane, Edozie
Nuno Espírito Santo has rolled back the years in an attempt to save West Ham. He has gone old-school, switching to a gung-ho 4-4-2 system to give his side more threat in the final third. Pablo Felipe and Taty Castellanos, both January arrivals, have altered the face of the attack, but neither forward has been prolific. Castellanos has scored three goals in all competitions since joining from Lazio and Pablo, who is yet to open his account in English football, failed to convert during last week’s penalty shootout defeat by Leeds in the FA Cup. As a pair, though, Castellanos and Pablo have been oddly effective. Are they any good? Unclear. Do they run around a lot and give a previously ponderous West Ham more energy? Undoubtedly. Played together, Pablo and Castellanos do a worthy job for the team. Importantly, they create space for the wingers, Jarrod Bowen and Crysencio Summerville, who hopes to return from a calf injury for Friday night’s vital home game against Wolves. Bowen and Summerville are the big threats; they are West Ham’s main source of goals, but both are more dangerous with Pablo and Castellanos in the team. Jacob Steinberg
Preamble
West Ham are massive, everywhere they go, and this is massive for the Hammers. It’s been a long wait to get back to Premier League business, and it’s unfinished business. They have to win against their manager’s old club or else it’s a weekend looking through the fingers at how Tottenham, Leeds and Nottingham Forest get on. Wolves, with little to lose, are a dangerous opponent. Let’s say this again: this is massive.
Kick-off is at 8pm BST. Join me.
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