Flying Kiwis – December 20

Winston Reid – West Ham United (English Premier League)

From the brink of the drop zone, West Ham have won two in a row and mercifully haul themselves up to 13th on the table. They were due, gotta give them that. And while neither win was in any way glamorous, the Hammers are long past caring about that.

Burnley at home, midweek. A game they absolutely had to be targeting against a team that at the time had only scored one away goal all season (they added a second in a 2-1 loss to Spurs on the weekend). And to be fair to West Ham, they did target it. They were much the better team for the first half, with Andy Carroll making his first start since August and he was immediately a threat that the Burnley defence couldn’t really deal with. But also he couldn’t take advantage of that. The whole lot of them couldn’t and after Carroll had missed a great chance with his head, Antonio had seen a shot saved, Lanzini had fired one over and Noble had rattled the frame it seemed the first 45 were coming to a frustrating end. Which was about when Ben Mee tangled with Winston Reid on a corner the referee pointed to the spot.

Mark Noble actually missed the spottie… but he followed it up to put the Hammers 1-0 in advantage.

The Guardian: “The goal came in injury time in the first half and from a Dimitri Payet corner, after the Frenchman, who lasted the full 90 minutes, found Carroll with his cross. The forward’s header went straight towards Tom Heaton, but the Burnley keeper seemed to be impeded by Michail Antonio and could not get to the ball. Instead it bounced back into the path of Winston Reid and, unwilling to give him a shooting opportunity, Ben Mee pulled the New Zealander to the ground. The referee, Robert Madley, awarded the penalty and Noble turned it in at the second attempt after his first was well saved by Heaton.”

West Ham got bloody lucky though – and not just because Sean Dyche thought there was a foul on the keeper before the penalty was given. Burnley were far better after the break and while Cresswell’s clearance off the line was handy and Randolph made a few impressive saves, it was Sam Vokes’ miss from six yards out that really had them counting Christmas blessings. A desperately needed win which got a little desperate in the end – a first win in seven league games.

Slaven Bilic: “It was a very important game for us. It was a very long game - the longest game we've been involved in. Well done to the players, we showed the character. I think we deserved it. We dominated the first half and we had shots that hit the post. We should have been ahead by more than one goal looking at the quantities of chances”

EssexLive Player Ratings: “Winston Reid - West Ham's best defender put in another consummate and professional display despite taking a whack on the head just two minutes in. 7”

Following that, they hosted Hull and despite the Tigers being more or less the worst team in the division, that they didn’t win this game 3-0 is a mystery. Like, Winston Reid had a superb game here. He made 11 clearances with 5 interceptions. He hardly misplaced a pass all game. But he wasn’t the man of the match, nope, West Ham’s top player in this one was The Post. Three times The Post came to the rescue with Hull scuffing a couple of one-on-ones and a handful of other shots too. Hull played so well, guys like Robert Snodgrass (who’s too good for Hull) and Sam Clucas picking passes all over… yet they didn’t score and at least some of that comes down to some top notch WHU defence.

Then with a shade under 15 minute left, West Ham won a penalty for a very soft foul on Michail Antonio and Mark Noble scored it for the 1-0 win. Outrageous luck but they’ve had more than their fair share of the opposite so far. This is the first time West Ham have won consecutive games at the London Stadium.

Slaven Bilic: “It is a massive three points for us. Back-to-back wins, in this stadium, are very good considering the situation we were in. Am I pleased with our performance? No I'm not. Am I pleased with our reaction? I am, but we have to play for 90 minutes.”

EssexLive Player Ratings: “Winston Reid - A bit shaky in the first half and gave away too many fouls, but was a lot better in the second period in seeing the game through. 7”

Not joking about The Post either:

Up Next: Away to Swansea City on Boxing Day, 4.00am Tuesday (NZT)

Chris Wood – Leeds United (English Championship)

There’s good news and there’s bad news for Woody. But the good news is greater so don’t panic. They played twice this week, Leeds did, the first being a mid-weeker against Reading. A slightly different shape to the team with Monk going more aggressive with his midfield selections but up top as usual was the All Whites main goal scorer and 19 minutes into the contest he went and did this:

Another tap-in, another bit of clever strikesmanship. Gotta be the first to react after all. Yet another goal for the bugger and his Leeds up 1-0. That was in the 19th minute. In the 30th minute this happened…

Some injury too, he’d be replaced straight away and would be off for scans as soon as they could book him in. Bit of a hammy issue. The rest of them did alright without him though, holding onto the lean sheet and then making sure of things right at the end with a Souleymane Doukara goal for a 2-0 victory. Yet another win, they’re getting to become pretty regular around Elland Road.

Without Woody on the weekend though, they struggled. Doukara led the line on his own and that guy’s a decent player but Wood’s quite integral to Garry Monk’s side. He holds the ball up and lays it around. Not a perfect finisher but he’s got a habit of popping up with goals all the same. No need to get into the nitty gritty of a game the main man didn’t play in but suffice to say they took a long time to break through Brentford. 89 minutes in fact, when Kyle Bartley scored a header to give the Whites all three points and a hugely impressive result – if not performance – while missing a few important faces and on a short turnaround.

As for the injury, it’s good news. No rehashing of the wobbly muscle knock which cost him a couple months of last season (at around a similar time too) and he should be back for the next game. As might Pablo Hernandez be, after a hamstring issue of his own has kept him out of action for more than a month. Not so much for Charlie Taylor, a fella who handed in a transfer request before the season but has started every league game so far. He went off with a sore Achilles against Brentford and there’s a chance he misses extended time.

YEP: “Wood pulled up in the early stages of Tuesday’s meeting with Reading at Elland Road and was ruled out of the clash with Brentford after being sent for additional scans on the back of an initial assessment on Wednesday.”

Garry Monk: “We’re hoping Chris can be part of the latter stages of the week. He’s not going to lose too much fitness or conditioning in the small period he’s out so hopefully it’ll be the Preston game he’s available for.”

Through it all Together: “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone... or at least temporarily side-lined through injury. If one thing was evident from yesterday’s game, it’s that, despite Doukara putting in a good shift, he isn’t Chris Wood. Love him or hate him, Chris Wood is a massive presence up top for Leeds and he brings much more than regular goals. His hold up play is great and work rate equally as good.”

By the way…

Up Next: Boxing Day footy, Preston vs Leeds, 4.00am Tuesday (NZT)

Bill Tuiloma – Olympique de Marseille (French Ligue 1)

We’re entering the season where Flying Kiwis eases off for everyone except for Reid and Wood, whose workload pretty much gets doubled. England, aye? Not for Tui, he’s got one more game before a three week winter break and others will have a longer slice of time off – Marco Rojas could tell you all about that from back when he was in Switzerland.

First off, OM II went and drew 0-0 away at Nice II which is okay. It’s not the worst result. Nice are a strong side and their reserves here featured more than a couple genuine pros amongst them and with a solid defensive effort the Marseille kids were able to grab a point on the road, this after a disappointing loss the week before to Sete. Nice response, so to speak. Having said that Nice had lost 8-0 to Monaco’s reserves a few days earlier so not being able to steak a winner kinda taints it slightly.

What’s gonna be interesting is that when the ressies next play after this game on Thursday is halfway through the January transfer window. OM have a new coach and a new owner. They have an injury prone midfield backed up only by youth and while that’s cool for Tui’s prospects… not so much for the club. They might want to add a new fella into that. They might also want to loan out the 21 year old kiwi midfielder that’s plugging away in their reserves. We’ll see how that goes, keep an eye out.

In other news, his twitter account is back in action:

Plus if you look nice and close you can see him in the club’s Christmas video here, whipping up a few jigs in a silly sweater and pointy sunglasses:

Up Next: Frejus St-Raphael vs OM2, 7.00am (NZT)

Jeremy Brockie & Michael Boxall – SuperSport United (South African Premier Soccer League)

Also coming headfast into a seasonal break is the South African PSL, with Brox & Box having one more game this week before they put the feet up (not really, there’ll be training camps and friendlies and stuff) until early February.

The other week they lost in the Telkom Knockout final to Cape Town City. The other day they played the same damn team again in the league with the chance to overhaul them and go top of the table. But you could pretty much tell the two teams had played a cup final not that long ago – both of them started slowly and there weren’t many chances at all in the first half. Just a bit of Boxall defence:

Kickoff.com: “In the 11th minute stunning approach play yielded a chance for Moseamedi but he was only able to stab the ball goalwards under pressure and it was cleared away by Boxall after Pieterse did just about enough to slow the shot.”

Following on from playing hurt the other day, Brockie was left out of the starting XI although he did get a run for the last six minutes, coming off the bench with his team having finally found a way through after arguably having the better of the game ‘til then. It was Kingston Nkhatha, tapping home the square ball on the break from Letsholonyane, who did the damage 82 minutes in.

That would’ve been a huge result for SSU… had they held on. But they didn’t. In the 93rd minute they found themselves on the wrong end of a goalmouth scramble and somehow the ball ended up nestled in their net. Lebogang Manyama was the one who finished it off and the late, late draw means SSU remain third, Cape Town remain first.

Up Next: Thursday 6.30am, SSU vs Polokwane City (NZT)

Ryan Thomas – PEC Zwolle (Dutch Eredivisie)

As for these buggers, they go head on into the winter break now and they did so in absolute style. But, ah… not the classy kind of style. More the kind of style that gets you stuck in detention at high school. They lost 3-0 to Heracles with two red cards.

When your right back is sent off for a foul in the box after 16 minutes, the game plan more or less goes out the window. Silly old Bart Schenkeveld, aye? And while Thommo and his chaps kept things close for a while from there, then left back Bram van Polen went and got a second yellow after an hour and what the hell are you gonna do after that? Conceded twice more is the answer. On the positive side, Thomas had a couple shots, one of them on target and played the full game.

“Thomas is one thrifty attack from making it 1-1 but Castro stretches and holds the bet against”

(whatever that means – anybody speak Dutch?)

That means that the PECers finish the first half of the season with 3 wins, 5 draws and 9 losses with a -21 goal difference sitting third to last and in the relegation playoff zone. Six games without a win and it’ll be most of a month before they get another chance.

Up Next: Zwolle vs Ajax, 2.30am on Monday (NZT)

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Written by Nick Robinson On Tagged