West Ham vs. Liverpool: Winners and Losers from Premier League Game
Two goals in the opening seven minutes set West Ham United up for a thoroughly deserved 3-1 victory over Liverpool, who endured an evening to forget at Upton Park.
Winston Reid headed the hosts in front just 75 seconds into the clash on Saturday evening, with Diafra Sakho doubling the lead when his chip completely beat Simon Mignolet all ends up.
A fierce strike from Raheem Sterling—his third goal of the season—got Liverpool back into it, but ultimately they simply couldn’t recover from such a slow start, with substitute Morgan Amalfitano wrapping things up for the Hammers late on.
Here are some winners and losers from the night.
Winner: Sam Allardyce
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Sam Allardyce’s distaste for Liverpool dates back to when he used to have regular run-ins with Rafael Benitez while at Bolton and Blackburn, and it seemingly hasn’t diluted since.
You could tell that the West Ham boss had got his side fully revved up for this encounter from the very first whistle. The fact that it was a home, televised game against a bigger but clearly fragile side combined to make this the perfect storm for him.
The manager could be seen grinning in the dugout after his team established their early two-goal lead, and he was doubtless thinking back to all the moments in which the Upton Park crowd voiced their displeasure at him in recent seasons, as calls for the Hammers to play attacking football “the West Ham way” became almost deafening.
Allardyce will wear a self-satisfied, almost smug smile tonight, but you can’t doubt that he deserves it.
Loser: Steven Gerrard
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This is supposed to be the season in which Steven Gerrard regresses from his Roy of the Rovers type state in this Liverpool team and instead takes up more of a squad role, but just this week we’ve seen him score a last minute goal to rescue his side in the Champions League. All very last decade.
Gerrard’s third full 90 minutes of the week were undoubtedly his poorest, and Brendan Rodgers could be seen asking his skipper whether he was okay midway through the second half as his legs began to wobble.
In fairness to the Reds manager, injuries to Joe Allen and Emre Can on international duty have robbed him of two of the prime options to replace his skipper, and it’ll be interesting to see what he does in defensive midfield for the Capital One Cup tie against Middlesbrough in midweek, when Gerrard will surely be given the breather he needs.
Lucas Leiva, something of a surprise starter here, will probably play in there behind Jordan Henderson, who will captain the team. Should those two hit it off and Henderson showcase the leadership skills that have made him vice-captain then Gerrard’s position in the side has to come under serious scrutiny, especially with a now crucial Merseyside derby to come next week.
Winner: Stewart Downing
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These days it is very easy to condense football matters into 140 characters of text or six seconds of video. Everyone is put in a certain box and they are doomed to remain in there, locked away by the Gods of Football Banter.
Stewart Downing is therefore forever remembered as the £20 million Liverpool flop, so much so that whenever he does something good—a great goal at Crystal Palace recently, a fine performance at Hull, another good game here—he is treated with mock surprise.
Can it not just be, at 30 years old and fully fit, Downing has found a club and a setting in which he can thrive in a comparatively less pressurised environment?
He no longer has everyone studying his every movement and touch in the red of Liverpool or the white of England, and he’s a much better player for that.
We’re not suggesting that an international recall is around the corner, but some popular recognition should be.
Losers: Liverpool’s Centre-Backs
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It was an evening when we got to see a lot of all three of Liverpool’s primary central defenders, and the faults and inadequacies which blight them all.
Right from the beginning, the entirety of Liverpool’s back four—which had been altered again to accommodate the returning Martin Skrtel—gave impressions of hungover men repeatedly hitting snooze on their alarm clocks, unwilling to acknowledge what lay ahead, and, in most cases, right on top of them.
When you’re in the position Liverpool are in right now—searching for confidence in a bid to repel the growing army of critics and “I told you so” merchants—then going 2-0 down after seven minutes is a criminal act, with the failure to effectively try and quell West Ham’s attacks evidence which makes the Reds guilty of gross negligence.
All three of the centre-backs we saw Liverpool field are good players, but there is something about this team and this system which makes them weak and susceptible to trouble.
They appear addicted to creating carnage in their own box, something which opposition of this standard will only seek to exploit.
Winner: Daniel Sturridge
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With every game he doesn’t play for Liverpool, Daniel Sturridge’s reputation gains even more.
The Vines, the memes and the chants that mock the Reds might all centre on the absence of the departed Luis Suarez, but it is easy to forget that even if the Uruguayan was still a Reds player he wouldn’t have been allowed on the pitch here, in any of Liverpool’s games so far this season, or any to come in the next six weeks.
Despite the signing of Mario Balotelli, Sturridge is still Liverpool’s main man, and the impressive movement that the pair showed in the recent win at Tottenham make the diamond formation that Brendan Rodgers started with here work so well.
How the Reds must still fume over the international injury which has seen them without Sturridge recently, and how they need him back for next week’s Merseyside derby.
Loser: Javier Manquillo
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For every young player there are the low moments in your fledgling career that you’ll remember, and Javier Manquillo had one after 22 minutes here.
The 20-year-old would have had an enjoyable week lapping up the praise that came his way after his role in the Champions League win over Ludogorets—when his late surge into the box won the penalty from which the Reds won the three points—but here he was pitched into a bear pit from which there seemed to be no escape.
Manquillo himself wasn’t directly responsible for the two goals which blew the Reds away before they’d even realised what was going on in the first seven minutes, but he appeared the most dazed and confused member of the defence long before Dejan Lovren’s face was headed by Mamadou Sakho.
The steepest learning curves are often the most difficult to negotiate, as Manquillo and his team found to their cost here.
