|
Fuck it’s amazing to be a West Ham fan right now !!!!! ⚒️
‘Fantastic team and fantastic manager’: Man City win is another step in West Ham’s remarkable rise
There is a new reality at West Ham United. Under David Moyes, anything is achievable. As evidenced by their dispatching of perennial Carabao Cup winners Manchester City last night — who had remarkably not lost in this competition for over five years.
When the last-16 tie at the London Stadium had to be decided by a penalty shootout after 90 goalless minutes, captain Mark Noble, Jarrod Bowen, Craig Dawson, Aaron Cresswell and finally Said Benrahma all confidently converted from the spot. Phil Foden had missed City’s first penalty.
A winning mentality has been one of the huge factors behind West Ham’s remarkable rise over the past season or so.
When the chosen five walked from the centre circle towards the Bobby Moore Stand, there was never a moment when they lacked belief they could knock holders City off their perch and put West Ham in the quarter-finals of this competition for the first time in four years.
When Benrahma converted the decisive penalty, euphoria gripped a capacity crowd. After all, this is a competition City had dominated for 1,827 days. Their last defeat in it was against Manchester United at Old Trafford on October 26, 2016.
West Ham
Benrahma celebrates with fans after scoring the winning penalty (Photo: Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
Moyes made eight changes from Sunday’s 1-0 victory here over Tottenham Hotspur, while Pep Guardiola made nine changes from their win at Brighton the previous evening. But it was still a relatively strong City team, with Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne, Riyad Mahrez and Ilkay Gundogan in the starting XI.
If ever a game was designed to highlight the team spirit, togetherness and reliability Moyes and his coaching staff have fostered at West Ham, this was it. Sterling had little joy trying to get past in-form young defender Ben Johnson, No 2 goalkeeper Alphonse Areola made several good saves to make it four clean sheets in as many appearances on loan from Paris Saint-Germain this season and Benrahma, who came on for the final half-hour, was embraced by supporters after scoring from the spot.
West Ham are also fourth in the Premier League after a quarter of the season and six points clear in their Europa League group at its halfway stage, and the positivity surrounding the club is showing no sign of abating. Guardiola was full of praise for Moyes in his post-match interview.
“One of the toughest games we played at home last season was against West Ham (when City won 2-1 in February),” said Guardiola. “They are doing well in the Premier League and in the Europa League and now in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals. Fantastic team and fantastic manager.”
It says a lot about West Ham’s progress that they have beaten Manchester United and Manchester City in the Carabao Cup this autumn without having to use two of their most important players, Declan Rice and Michail Antonio, in either tie. Moyes has been able to spread minutes through the squad, with fringe players eager to seize their opportunities. Although Andriy Yarmolenko and Nikola Vlasic struggled to have an impact on the game last night, Noble was composed in midfield making his first start in a month while Arthur Masuaku also caught the eye in his first home appearance all season.
Vladimir Coufal made a cameo appearance from the bench following three games on the sidelines with a groin injury. That means Moyes faces a tough defensive conundrum, with Johnson continuing to impress each week. The versatile 21-year-old has now featured in victories over Manchester United, Rapid Vienna, Everton, Genk, Spurs and City this season, and West Ham are yet to concede when Johnson has been in the team this season (Newcastle had scored their two goals in the opener before he came on as a late substitute).
The draw is not until Saturday. Arsenal, Brentford, Chelsea, Leicester, Liverpool, Tottenham and League One side Sunderland are the other clubs in the hat, and West Ham will have no fear.
Their last quarter-final in this competition ended in a 1-0 defeat at Arsenal just before Christmas 2017, early in Moyes’ first spell in charge, but they have massively improved since those days and will have the belief they can advance to the two-leg semi-finals in early January for the first time in eight years, no matter who they play next.
“He (Moyes) drives this football club on a daily basis and anyone approaching 1,000 matches (as a manager) has to be taken seriously,” says Stuart Pearce, the Scot’s first-team coach. “We feel we are on a building process and hard work underpins everything we do. He is developing this club and growing this club.”
Moyes, West Ham
Moyes ‘drives’ West Ham every day, according to assistant Pearce (Photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
Hours before last night’s game, the club announced they have been granted planning permission to increase match-day capacity at the London Stadium to 62,500. Discussions about the expansion took place in July and this latest development will help with the growing demand for tickets. The expansion would put them ahead of Arsenal’s capacity of 60,704 at the Emirates Stadium, to make West Ham’s home the third-largest ground belonging to a football club in England behind only Spurs’ new White Hart Lane and Manchester United’s Old Trafford.
“Everyone here is doing everything we can to grow and develop this football club, on and off the pitch, for the benefit of our supporters, and we all feel that things are moving in the right direction,” said Moyes.
West Ham hope those extra 2,500 seats will be in place by the start of next season. So far this campaign, all their home fixtures have been sold out.
Long after the penalty shootout ended, elated supporters were singing Forever Blowing Bubbles outside the ground.
This win over City was another sign of West Ham’s remarkable rise and those fans have no intention of seeing their journey in the Carabao Cup come to an end just yet.
|
