It’s like we’ve somehow been accidentally promoted back to the Premier League today, as we travel to the London Stadium, formerly known as the Sullivan and Gold Sticky Pages and Dildo Emporium, to play West Ham. This is the most difficult game of the season, certainly on the pitch. Middlesbrough away might give it a run for its money with all the off the pitch shite that will no doubt come along and an honourable mention to Portsmouth away, mainly because of all the spit.

Anyway, West Ham got relegated last season with Nuno Espirito Santo in charge and they really shouldn’t have done with the players they had at their disposal, two of whom, Mateus Fernandes and Crysencio Summerville, they sold for a combined £150 million quid. As a result, they’ve been able to keep virtually all the players that they wanted to keep and their squad is quite frankly, ridiculous for the Championship and the most expensive squad ever assembled in the division. They should win the league by a street and get 100 points. When you look at the players who were on their bench last time out and see the likes of Joel Piroe, Kyle Walker-Peters, Taty Castellanos and Alphonso Areola, you realise that this is very much a Premier League squad in the Championship.

The players do have to rise above their manager it seems. Nuno is notoriously defensive but that doesn’t tally with the amount of goals that West Ham have scored this year. They have been fairly free scoring and they’ve got nine more goals than us. It has been boosted somewhat with a ridiculous 6-0 win against Wrexham and then another one at Lincoln, who ended up with nine players for the vast majority of it. They smashed us in the Carabao Cup earlier on in the season at St Mary’s, but I don’t think that will be strictly relevant today, because a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then and the teams will be significantly different.

One bit of water which has gone under the bridge of course is James Ward-Prowse, leaving Nuno and Baldygate behind him and rejoining Saints and so far anyway, seamlessly fitting into our midfield and making it tick. He will be vital today, especially given the expected absence of Flynn Downes. It is all set up for a JWP 90th minute winner where he celebrates in front of Nuno, whipping a bald wig out of his sock, putting it on and doing the golf swing right in front of him.

West Ham have numerous attacking threats of course in the shape of Bowen, Solomon and Mukasa and they also have Mavropanos getting on the end of every free kick that’s tossed into the box at the moment and he’s already scored a ridiculous five goals this season. It is certainly not going to be easy but West Ham at times find the expectations of their fans difficult to deal with so, get an early goal and stop them playing and the crowd could turn and that could play into our advantage.

There does seem to be a generally happier atmosphere around the London Stadium this season, because of the departure of alleged sex pest David Sullivan and the fact that they are of course winning games, which always helps, even if you’re not playing as well as you can. Whilst they play at that fucking shit ground however, it will always be a reminder of the Sullivan, Gold and Brady, dildo and bondage funded move from Upton Park, one of the great old grounds of English football.

It’s actually hard to know what sort of Saints team is going to be on the pitch after the experimentations against Bolton. I do think that Tonda Eckert would dearly love to have JWP, Flynn Downes and Casper Jander all available and if they were, he would play all of them. As it is though, with Downes unlikely to make it, I can possibly see Cam Bragg coming into midfield and Matsuki missing out. If it was down to me, I would play JWP and Jander in midfield and pick all of Matsuki, Azaz and Senza along with whatever central striker we’ve got fit.

Tonda will be wrestling with an interesting conundrum with Leo Scienza. He is of course our quickest and most skilful attacking player but he was left out for the away win at Norwich. I do think though that if we’ve got to the stage where we’re leaving out our best attacking player in the Championship, simply because he’s not great running back towards his own goal, then we are doing something wrong. On his side of the pitch today is likely to be Joel Veltman who at 35, is not going to be the sort of full-back who makes continuous lung busting runs into our half. Leo will be fine and he should be playing today.

The other concern of course is Cyle Larin who has not looked fit since he came back from the international break and having gone off early against Bolton, I am not expecting him to be in the starting lineup and if he is, I would not expect him to be 100% fit. After Lewis Dobbin’s struggles last week, it’s a flip of a coin between him and ex-West Ham youth player Divin Mubama, who has a point to prove to both Tonda Eckert and to West Ham. He was the main player in an FA Youth Cup win for the Hammers a couple of years ago before not signing another new contract and disappearing off to Manchester City.

Saturday 2pm and Downes and Larin as expected have not made it and so Caspar Jander comes in for his first start of the season. Lewis Dobbin gets given another chance upfront. London Stadium and it’s pissing down.

3pm, bubbles and kick off and a minute in, Schlotterbeck picks out Azaz in the West Ham half and he turns and find Manning on the left. His low cross is cleared and Saints pick it up again with big Kev. Again he finds Azaz on the left who shovels it down the line to Manning the two of them work it infield to Scienza, who turns and jinks his way into the area past Mavropanos and gets a fortunate bounce back to him off of Mukasa and suddenly Leo is directly in front of Hermansson in goal and he smashes it, blocked by the keeper but it comes out and there is the man who’s always there, Matsuki to run it into the net. 95 seconds on the clock, 1-0 and a great fucking start.

The straight pass up the middle of the pitch is the way to go as Manning again takes out the entire West Ham midfield with a straight pass forward to send Dobbin away. Dobbin races forward with purpose to the edge of the box before attempting to find the far corner and puts it past the scrambling Hermansen but just wide.

A few minutes later and Saints again are on the ball with Dobbin picking it up in midfield but Jander place a ball behind Manning who is running out of room but for reasons of bravery / insanity, he decides to backheel it along the line to Scienza. Scienza finds the overlapping Jander on the left and his cross is flapped out by Hermanson as far as Bree on the right hand side and he goes for the sidewinder hip-high piledriver and lashes it into the near top corner of the net. Fuck me! What a fucking goal that is.

West Ham haven’t started playing yet, but here they come. The first danger comes when Scienza tries to run the ball out of defence and gets tackled by Mukasa, who dribbles into the box and his low effort deflects off of Big Kev and wide.

West Ham are chock-full of 7 foot mutants and so the corners from Engles are causing absolute carnage. We get away with this one but the direction of traffic of the game has changed now. Mukasa finds KWP on the right and his ball down the line finds Kante and no one gets across to him allowing him to blast it at Peretz and it flicks off the keeper’s ankle and goes about a foot wide of the far post. We seriously got away with one there. More corner carnage and Peretz has to get airborne to push it away.

Another corner and everyone misses it and this time it hits Matsuki near the line and we smuggle it away again. The charmed life that our goal is having can’t last however and a player we know all about, KWP, picks it up on the right hand side, dribbles past Caspar Jander as if he was possessed by the tackling ability of Will Smallbone, and deposits the ball in the top corner. Brilliant finish to be fair – we taught him that.

Saints have got to get hold of the ball again and start causing problems. Peretz goes for the good old straight ball down the middle and finds Dobbin on halfway in acres of space. He turns and finds Azaz on the right and eventually it’s worked to Scienza on the left. Over to JWP and Nuno shats it as the shot is blocked out to Azaz, blocked again and out to Scienza, saved and out to Dobbin who is 3 yards out and can’t miss…. and he doesn’t for his first Saints goal. Get in.

We need to get to half-time with this lead and Kante takes aim for a long way out and Peretz sees the ball bobble away from him and Castellanos puts it wide from 6 yards…. wanker!!!….but he was offside anyway.

Half-time. When we attack we look like scoring every time but we can’t let West Ham dominate possession as they have the individual quality to hurt us. That’s the key, Nuno’s team have no attacking patterns to talk of. Set pieces into the mixer and that’s it. The fact that their goal came from KWP tells you all you need to know. So, parity in possession in the second half is needed, then we will see this game out.

Early signs are not good as West Ham get on the ball and Kante puts one over the bath from the edge of the box. Saints are trying to play out but keep giving the ball away and Mavropanos comes rumbling forward, gets a lucky bounce off a challenge and decides to just fucking leather it and Peretz gets airborne to his right to claw the ball away. Great save and from the rebound, JWP arrives to clear up. That’s what good midfielders do.

We are still having our moments as a West Ham clearance is headed down by Stephens to Azaz and for all the world it looks like he’s about to have a shot from 30 yards but he lays the ball through to Dobbin in the inside left channel and he takes a wonderful touch to work himself some space before getting the shot away quickly and seeing it flick off the outside of the far post. That would have been a moment.

Most of the action is up the other end however and a KWP cross is headed out as far as Kilman and from about 35 yards he attempts a James Bree with his left foot and it fizzes onto the bar down onto the back of Peretz and wide. Heart in mouth.

Just after the hour mark, we are beginning to look a bit tired in places and so Scienza and Matsuki are replaced with Edozie and Wellington. On the face it, it looks like a really good move to shore up the left-hand side in particular.

West Ham’s subs are on as well – Pablo, Soucek, Austbo and Piroe. They build on the left through Pablo and Austbo and Engles drives in a shot from the edge of the box and an offside looking Bowen jumps over it forcing to Peretz into a reflex save with his foot before Schlotterbeck clears. The linesman doesn’t stick his flag up but we do get a free kick, however, as the ball comes back in and Peretz clears and gets wiped out by an incoming mutant.

By having white seats, it is very very obvious when the West Ham fans are leaving the ground and we are at that phase of proceedings as Dobbin is replaced by Mubama. We are into the five minutes of added time and we have dropped a little bit too deep as Azaz and Wellington both fail to get challenges in when they probably should’ve won the ball and the ball bounces off of Castellanos out to Soucek on the edge of the box, who fires an excellent shot into the bottom corner. Fuck. Two minutes to go.

You know there’s gonna be the one more chance and here it comes with Bowen crossing from deep with Castellanos flicking it goalwards and Peretz gets airborne again to push it away, just as Mutantpanos thumps into him. One more ball into the box and Captain Jack gets a foot to it to knock it wide and the ref blows the whistle. West Ham are all arm waving because they don’t have time to take the corner. Do one.

I believe they call that a statement win. Everything has got to have a name these days – any win is a fucking statement isn’t it? However, I get it – away from home against the most expensively assembled team in Championship history and we come away with a 3-2 win. Absolutely brilliant and absolute heroes to a man once again.

Right from the start of the game, we looked absolutely up for it and you expect that, but what you don’t expect is to be two goals up in the first 11 minutes, which we were, courtesy of our preparation, identification of weaknesses and determination to react to whatever was going on in the West Ham penalty area which of course was a lot better than West Ham‘s response. A save by the keeper and Matsuki reacts and scores, a flap by the keeper and a ridiculous thunderbastard of a goal from James Bree. Give him a difficult chance and he scores, giving him an absolute sitter and he will miss.

West Ham deserved to pull the goal back when they did having started dominating possession and it was kind of hard to be angry because of that and because KWP was their goal scorer. I usually say that players who leave Saints are dead to me, but KWP is an exception because at the end of the day he stayed for a season in the Championship with us and who can blame him for leaving after suffering two relegations with us. We looked for a while that we’d be very grateful to reach half-time still ahead but then the third goal from Lewis Dobbin, again courtesy of Saints players reacting quickest in the West Ham area after two defensive blocks and a save. 3-1 ahead at half-time was dreamland.

The second half was never going to be easy, and though we nearly scored again with Dobbin’s clever turn and shot that hit the outside of the post, it was mainly West Ham possession and chances but they came up ultimately against Daniel Peretz, the best keeper in the Championship, who was brilliant and kept out virtually everything. Of course there were players in front of him, with the whole of the back four – Bree, Stephens, Schlotterbeck and Manning all putting in a great shift. It was with no degree of irony that JWP was the best midfielder on the pitch and I think what that is, is a middle finger salute to Nuno Espirito Santo. It shows how pointless it is to hold grudges against players and let that cloud your judgement. How West Ham could’ve done with JWP in the centre of their midfield today. They would have won.

Lewis Dobbin was the only name on the teamsheet at the start, who was maybe a bit fortunate to be picked, but he was excellent, manoeuvring himself away from the twin giants of Mavropanos and Kilman to be a constant threat. In the first half in particular, it was remarkable how easy it was for either Stephens, Schlotterbeck or Manning to pass the ball forward and take out the West Ham midfield and the ball found it’s way to the feet of Azaz or Dobbin who were facing the right way and able to cause havoc with the West Ham defence. Matsuki got his goal before tiring later on and though he didn’t directly assist a goal, Scienza was involved in all three goals before he was removed from the defensive effort in the second half.

Last week’s left against Bolton is now forgotten and we move on. The significance of the win today is not only the fact that we’ve beaten the most expensive team in the league, it’s the fact that we have beaten them away from home and we should now be going into every single game we play, confident that we can win it.

Nuno did not have a good day. Not only did JWP run the midfield but the way he set his team up was absolutely diabolical. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game where the goalkeeper or defenders on the opposition could basically repeatedly pass the ball 50 yards in a straight line straight up the pitch and then the receiving player turn and just run towards the goal. West Ham’s defence was made to look completely amateur in that first half, but when you look at the individual players in there you’ve got KWP, Mavropanos, Kilman and Morato, who in their time have all been solid Premier League players. It goes to show that if you don’t get the midfield structure right in front of the defence then it’s a recipe for disaster. Those defenders all looked completely shell shocked with the pressure they were under and that maybe that goes some way to explaining why they didn’t react as quickly as the Saints players did when the ball was pinging about the penalty area. West Ham’s problems are nothing to do with the individual talent they’ve got in their side. It’s the collective build of the team that is the problem and that comes down to Nuno.

West Ham fans are almost universally bleating on about the referee Michael Salisbury. To be honest, I genuinely didn’t think he was that bad and I usually notice it if we get given dodgy decisions. We got given one goal kick that probably should’ve been a corner but other than that, I thought that the fouls given were all fouls. There was one in the second half where Scarles slid into Azaz and won the ball but he did so by going straight through his ankle. You can’t moan about decisions like that. Maybe it’s the case of the big club in the division having got used to getting things their own way. Jarrod Bowen was particularly making me laugh in the second half, usually by dribbling the ball into a challenge, kicking it off the pitch somehow and then appealing to the referee for a throw or a corner when anyone with half a brain could see he touched it last. Then there was the issue over the end of the game when Stephens put the ball out for a corner and the ref said there wasn’t enough time left to take it. Why are you complaining about that? We’re already in the 97th minute of the 95 and the clock doesn’t stop when the ball goes off for a corner so it’s perfectly valid to blow the whistle.

Daniel Peretz proved again today what a ridiculous goalkeeper he is. The fact that we managed to sign him when in the Championship, with everything that went on last season, for as little as we did, is absolutely absurd. Considering how shit the conditions were today for a goalkeeper and considering the opposition and what they bring to the table, that was an absolutely brilliant performance. Some people will sniff a bit and say that he was a bit flappy on some of the crosses into the box but it’s ridiculous to nitpick over that when he came for absolutely everything. It was pissing down and West Ham have about six players who are 7 foot mutants. There were so many great saves, good punches and even good fingertips on crosses to deflect them away from whatever mutant giant was running in. No saves were better than in the 96th minute when he clawed away Castellanos’ header, a split second before Mavropanos steamed into him. He had a bit of luck of course but you need that in a game like this – it’s not his fault that Castellanos can’t put a rebound into an empty net from 6 yards. I know he was offside but you get my drift.

What I loved about the whole performance, particularly in the first half was the desire to go forward and the bravery in doing so, epitomised by Ryan Manning back-heeling that ball along the line to set Scienza away which ultimately lead to the second goal. And then you have the bravery of James Bree to hit that. That’s what football is all about, positivity and a desire to make things happen. It would’ve been the easiest thing in the world for Ryan Manning to knock that ball back to the goalkeeper, as is what happens 99% of the time in modern football, and it would’ve been the easiest thing in the world for James Bree to control that and play a short pass to someone else. Sometimes we forget that football is about moments. If Manning plays backwards, or Breezy takes a touch and crosses it – which many modern managers would be telling them to do, then that goal doesn’t happen, fans don’t have that moment, the players don’t have that moment and we possibly don’t win that game.

Fortune favours the brave. Tonda needs to take that attitude forward into forthcoming games against other teams in this division and not get over-concerned about the Bolton right back’s ability to run forward etc.

And of course, all of this comes despite not having two of the most important players from the spine of our team available today with both Flynn Downes and Cyle Larin out injured. Maybe they’ll be back for next week at home to QPR – but even if they’re not, we have to have the confidence that we can handle it and bring home another 3 points.

Up the fucking Saints