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| Turning point: Fans witness a 3-0 defeat against Reading in December |
In my review of the 2010/11 season, I used the image of
Avram Grant losing a blank notebook to the wind of the Etihad Stadium as a
symbol of a rudderless and doomed campaign. The topsy-turvy 2011/12 season does
not lend itself quite so neatly to such metaphors. One Arsenal fan described his team’s
season as “bipolar”, and while I am loth to compare a season that ended in
promotion to a disorder, it was certainly a year of extremes and uncertainty. Aptly,
fans were kept waiting until the dying minutes of the 49th and final
match for a dramatic resolution.
For most other supporters in the Championship, regardless of
whether they ultimately tasted success or failure, the pattern of their season
tended to be quite straightforward. Reading: play-off hangover for the first
four months, ruthlessly efficient thereafter. Southampton :
quick out of the blocks, stumbled at the halfway point, then recovered. Coventry and Doncaster :
barely out of the relegation places all season. There was little ambiguity at
either end of the table. 7th-placed Middlesbrough
missed the play offs by five points. 21st-placed Barnsley
avoided relegation by eight points. By contrast, the play-off final victory
over Blackpool could not have better
encapsulated a season that for West Ham fans was never quite one thing or the
other.
An opening 15 minutes in which Blackpool
could quite easily have been 3-0 up, was a throwback to the self-destructive
mentality demonstrated in too many big Upton Park matches where the players had
simply frozen or panicked. 2-0 down within 30 minutes against Birmingham . Reduced to ten men within 18
minutes against Southampton . Turning a one-nil
lead against Reading
into a 2-1 deficit within the space of a minute. This was not how it was
supposed to be under Big Sam.
The response though, was also familiar. The players waited
patiently for a chink in Blackpool ’s armour
and when the chance came, West Ham’s superior class told. Matt Taylor, always a
threat in advanced positions, played an inch-perfect pass to Carlton Cole who
calmly slotted away his fifteenth goal of the season. It was not by accident
that this team finished ten points above its nearest rivals and just three
points behind champions Reading.
Looking at West Ham’s league placing during the season, it
is tempting to counter this portrayal of a season of extremes. On 17 October,
we entered the top three and remained there for the rest of the season. Indeed,
narrow one-goal wins at Upton Park against the likes of Portsmouth ,
Peterborough and Coventry did not feel particularly “extreme”
at the time. But rarely was one such clinical, workmanlike performance followed
by another.
And that’s the point. This was not a season that can be
nicely dissected into defined segments of good form and bad form. You simply
did not know what to expect from one game to the next. Three consecutive league
wins at the turn of the year were followed by that 5-1 hammering at Ipswich . When a run of seven home matches without defeat
came to an end, it did so with a 6-0 thrashing of Brighton .
When three consecutive games had to be played with ten men, seven points from nine
were still accumulated.
Where did it all go right? Or perhaps the question should be,
how did it not go wrong? For there were plenty of negatives. The protracted
departure and derisory sale price of Scott Parker. The collapse of the Olympic
Stadium deal. David Bentley. Sam Allardyce’s attempt to sign Diouf. The
mysterious under-utilisation of big-name signings Ravel Morrison. Nicky Maynard
and Sam Baldock. Exit from both cups in the first round. John Carew. Watching
opponents “park the bus” at Upton Park. Watching our players fail to deal with
opponents that “park the bus”. Fans calling for Di Canio. Allardyce calling the
fans deluded. A bit too much “long ball”. Exaggerated perceptions amongst
opposing fans about “long ball”. Unhelpful generalisations in the media as to
West Ham fans’ attitude to “long ball”.
To miss out on automatic promotion by just two points and to
go up anyway against that backdrop is a reminder of exactly why Allardyce was
employed in the first place. He gets results. He took a team relegated with 33
points, with one point from its last 27, and got them back in the Premier
League at the first attempt. He made some very good signings: Kevin Nolan,
Ricardo Vaz Te, Matt Taylor, George McCartney, Henri Lansbury, Joey O’Brien. He
got the best out of existing players – James Tomkins, Winston Reid, Carlton
Cole, Gary O’Neil – whom another manager might have preferred to move on.
Somebody more tactically analytical than myself could dedicate thousands of
words to deconstructing the tactics that ultimately brought us success. I will
sum them up in two words. Job done.
Analysing a year in the Championship sheds little light on
what a first season back in the Premier League is likely to bring. Scraping
into the play offs in 2005 gave no indication that a top half finish and an FA
Cup final appearance awaited. Within days of the final game, the promotion-winning
squad was already being disassembled. This is a season that will be remembered
for the outcome, rather than how that outcome was achieved.
Did I say that?
Did I say that?
Finally, and if only for some comic relief, here are my pre-season predictions from last August.
- One-nil
to the cockney boys. Six one-nil wins by mid-January, then no more. (1/5)
- Player of the year: Matt Taylor. Were it not for injuries and a bizarre redeployment to defence he may have been in with a shout, but probably not. (1/5)
- Big Sam to re-write I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles. I reckon he considered it at times but by the time we reached Wembley he was singing Bubbles with the rest of us. (1/5)
- Millwall hoodoo to be broken. A draw at their place. Victory with ten men at ours. (4/5)
- Leeds and
- The kids to make little impact. Hines and Stanislas left. Sears and Nouble bearly featured. Potts played a couple of games. (4/5)
- Scott Parker to be gone by end of August; Greeno gone in January. Scotty left. Greeno stayed. (2.5/5)
- Starting XI for last game vs
- Sam Brown’s ‘I Feel Good’ to kick in when we score at Upton Park. Announcer Jeremy Nicholas makes it clear in his book Mr Moon Has Left the Stadium that music being played after a goal will never happen. (0/5)
- Some good awaydays. A club record 13 away wins. (5/5)
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