Flying Kiwis – January 18
Winston Reid – West Ham United (English Premier League)
The good news now is that Winnie’s back to more or less full fitness. Not match fitness, maybe, but he’s back and raring to go all the same. Now he’s just gotta wait his turn.
That’s what happens in a competitive team and, so it goes, Big Ginge James Collins (his actual nickname) found the form of his life while Winston was out. Reid’s been back for a couple games now, getting in 90 minutes against Wolves in an FA Cup third round win, before spending the next couple league games on the bench as an unused sub.
That Cup game, a 1-0 win courtesy of a Nikica Jelavic goal in the 84th minute, was his first appearance since that masterclass performance against Man United at Old Trafford. When Bastian Schweinsteiger copped him with a stray elbow, you remember it. And he looked like he’d never been away with a dominating effort against the Championship team. The Hammers had to work damn hard but they got there in the end, finally breaking through a defiant Wolverhampton backline. Winston, meanwhile, took care of his own business.
West Ham will play on the road against either Exeter or Liverpool in the fourth round. A tough ask if the Reds presumably get through but then they’ve already done the double over them in the league so maybe not.
“It was good to get back out there after a long while out. The team's been doing really well since I've been injured, so it's been really good and maybe the players who haven't played as much came in on Saturday and did their job and got the win. I did my job on Saturday. I've been for out for four weeks and trained with the guys for three and a half, four days, so I had to feel my way into the game and just get out of it what I could. I had to make sure I did my job and make sure we got a win.” – WR
Since then the Hammers have had a couple contrasting results. A 3-1 win over Bournemouth had them all the way up to fifth before they fell 2-1 to an improved Newcastle team (Jonjo Shelvey, aye folks?). A disappointing end to an eight game unbeaten streak but they’re still sixth and well poised for a great season. James Collins and Angelo Ogbonna have been playing at CB in Reid’s absence, we’ll see if Slaven Bilic is feeling tinkery after that loss.
Up Next: WHU v Man City, 6.30pm Sunday (NZT)
Tyler Boyd - Vitória S.C. (Portuguese Primeira Liga)
Shout out to this main man. Left outta the last All Whites squad for no particular reason, he’s fallen out of focus with most kiwi fans but he’s been steadfastly plugging away with the Vitoria reserves in his first season in Portugal. And this week, he made his first team debut.
This is a huge milestone for kiwi football, not only did he get this move after his time with the Phoenix but he’s done well enough to play first team football already. Marco Rojas has shown the difficulties of that breakthrough in his own trials. But here was Tyler, up against the storied FC Porto and in the starting team. He’d play 64 minutes before being subbed off (with a yellow a few mins earlier) as Vitoria gained a big upset victory, winning 1-0 thanks to a Bouba Sare goal in the fourth minute following a mistake by Iker Casillas. Yes, obviously that same Iker Casillas. It was Porto’s first loss since they sacked their coach almost two weeks back.
You can check out the highlights here on the Vitoria official site, Boyd is wearing number 32 and that looks suspiciously like him making that run from the left wing to the near post, a few inches away from a goal 13 seconds into his debut.
Up Next: Away to Belenenses, 5am Monday (NZT)
Tommy Smith – Ipswich Town (English Championship)
A quality time of it for Smithy it’s been. He was rested on the bench for the FA Cup clash against Portsmouth (L2), though struggling to put away ol’ Pompey he was called up for the final 27 minutes. And in that time his lads conceded a near winner and then pulled one back with a couple rotations of the clock to play. Dramatic stuff, it’ll require a replay in a few days to see who gets to play Bournemouth (at home) in the fourth round.
But aside from that, it was thumbs up. They played and beat Leeds in a would-have-been Flying Kiwis Derby, before settling for a 1-1 draw at home to an in-form Preston team which leaves them seventh on the table but only goal difference out of the playoffs.
Against Leeds to begin with. Chris Wood was absent as we’ll get to next but Smith played the full game. Playing at home on a Tuesday night it turns out Ipswich are unbeatable because this was their fifteenth consecutive such win. Though they started in the worst way – conceding after a mere twelve seconds. Souleymane Doukara scored that one, we’ll get to him later as well.
Twice in the opening stages Smithy nearly turned a shot or a cross into his own net but both times his keeper Dean Gerken saved comfortably. Ipswich then grew into the game, starting to make a few chances even if they weren’t really threatening the goal. That would come in the second half, with Like Chambers levelling five minutes after the break. Quite the contorting header too. Plenty of home fans were already celebrating when Cole Skuse’s deep effort curled narrowly wide, similarly when Brett Pitman was unable to reach Ryan Fraser’s ball after he’d drawn the goalie way out of his box out wide. But the winner finally came, 92 minutes in and not a second too late. Fraser with the cross, Pitman with the header and Ipswich with the win.
The Preston game was always gonna be a brutal one, coming as the third in a week for both of them. It certainly doesn’t help the poor groundsman and the pitch at Portman Road was noticeably worse for wear. So were the Ipswich defenders it appeared, fumbling a series of chances to clear the ball and eventually allowing Daniel Johnson to give Preston a seventh minute lead. Smith had the third crap header, missing his effort completely under pressure. He then managed to block a shot right in the gut, unable to get close enough for the decisive effort.
But a rocket of a shot from Daryl Murphy tied things up late in the first half. 1-1 was the way it would stay, too, throughout a dire second spell in which both sides were left to bemoan refereeing decisions. Preston had a goal disallowed for offside that they weren’t too keen on the ruling of and Ipswich were dead sure they should’ve had a late penalty. All’s even that end’s even.
“You can’t win them all. We’ve been on a good run, we remain unbeaten (in six) and if you can’t win it then don’t lose it.” – Mick McCarthy
Up Next: The Cup replay first, and then Birmingham vs Ipswich, 4am Sunday (NZT)
Chris Wood – Leeds United (English Championship)
Leeds beat Rotherham 2-0 in the Cup, yay. Except here’s the thing: Chris Wood is still injured. That dodgy hammy that’s been bothering him, he’s missed a bunch of games with this tweak though he’s almost ready to go again. He was rated 50/50 for their last Champo game before not being risked.
Those Champo games. Two of them, both losses. Nothing flash there, from the late defeat to Ipswich (see above) to their 2-0 loss away at Sheffield Wednesday. Doukara has been starting in Wood’s place and not doing anything too exciting, meanwhile the club is crazy busy with their promised transfers and things seem to be happening all around big Woody. He’s been rumoured for both Wolves and Reading (plus a few more from more questionable sources) and it’s highly likely that Leeds look to bring in some competition for him (they won’t sell him, no worries there). However they did sell wantaway winger/fullback Sam Byram, for a healthy few mill to Everton, meaning there is dosh in the coffers if they wanna spend it.
Here’s some chat on one of Byram’s possible replacements and his potential combo with Wood. Also, Leeds got a really nice draw for the next round of the Cup, away to either non-league Eastleigh or struggling Bolton. All interesting stuff.
Gotta get real for a sec here though. As the All Whites most common captain this last year, Wood got to vote as one of NZ’s representatives in the Ballon D’Or stakes and yet somehow both he and Anthony Hudson both managed to overlook eventual winner Lionel Messi. Absolute madness. The striker bias for Bob Lewandowski is one thing but Kevin De Bruyne!? Get outta here, man.
Up Next: Hosting Bristol City for a 4am game Sunday (NZT)
Bill Tuiloma – RC Strasbourg Alsace (French Championnat National)
Two games back for RCS after the Xmas break, in which Billy T was an unused substitute both times. First off was a 2-0 win at home to Belfort, second was a 0-0 draw away at Orleans. Not ideal to be sitting on the bench but that’s the way things go sometimes. He got a few minutes on the field at the end of their last game before the break, here’s hoping he did enough over the last few weeks of training to convince the power bearers that he’s next cab off the rank.
Up Next: A weekend off, then an 8am game on Saturday 30th vs Beziers (NZT)
Ryan Thomas – PEC Zwolle (Dutch Eredivisie)
It was back into action in fine form for the PECers, they smashed Heerenveen 5-2 at home. Bram van Polen bagged a double in that one, a win that edges Zwolle only one point off the European playoff spots. Unfortunately they were still without Thommo. He ended last year with an injury and didn’t take him to their early-Jan training camp in Spain on account of that pesky knee. As such he wasn’t rushed back for this game either, we’ll have to play the waiting game with this dude for now.
Adding actual insult to actual injury, he was also rated his club's flop of the season so far by Dutch magazine VI, a claim to which it seems many fans (inasmuch as twitter replies count for the collected mindset of a fanbase) disagreed with fairly strongly. The lad’s had a few injuries. That does seem very harsh.
Meanwhile Thommo took the time to back up his national coach after Anthony Hudson’s recent ‘outburst’. He spoke to 3 News, offering some clever words from an experienced head.
“I mean these coaches are basically brainwashing these kids, promising professional football without knowing how to see it through. These kids think they'll go on to play in the Premier League if they stay with these coaches and train three or four times a week. It's unbelievable really."
Cheers to him for preaching the truth. Here’s the Wildcard’s take on the whole thing for those of you interested.
Up Next: Off to Utrecht at 2.30am Monday (NZT)