An utterly bizarre first half with West Ham caught out of position so many times I lost count, mostly down the Hammers’ right hand side with Garnacho running on to balls over the top several times, Wan Bissaka absent, again pushed into the opponents half.
Wan – Bissaka high up the pitch again
Rodriguez’ misplaced pass allowed Hoyland to hit the bar, Dalot later splitting the defence, one on one with the keeper and inexplicably shooting over with the goal gaping – how he missed that I’ll never know. Alan Shearer suggested ‘one of the worst Premier League misses in the last 20 years!’
Disorganised chaos. Antonio at one stage popping up at right back, Wan Bissaka sometimes playing central midfield- what was going on? Paquetá of course a dumb yellow card for preventing a restart. Where is that man’s brain?
Alvarez almost headed into his own net and then a great Fabianski save kept the scores level at half time. 8-1 in favour of Manchester United for attempts at half time. Woeful half with sporadic booing as the whistle went: Surely Manchester United couldn’t waste so many chances in the second half. We were so bad-I just didn’t want to keep on watching.
But I did. Hoping for something to change at half time. How pleased was I to see Tomas Soucek walking down the tunnel along with Jean Clair Todibo and Crysencio Summerville. 60,000 plus Hammers fans yelled ‘we told you so’ at Lopetegui. Mavropanos was injured in the half but Paquetá-especially- and Soler were ineffective.
Finally we looked a team. Wan Bissaka and Bowen combining on the right and Antonio shooting wide. Summerville’s back heel laying on the shot. The crowd were singing bubbles a little less forlornly now. Suddenly Summerville was running, Wan Bissaka became a ball player and West Ham started creeping back into the match. A much better balance and coherency in defence suggested we’d get something out of this match now: 65 mins in and we had 65% possession now. Ings on for Antonio.
And then it happened, 73 minutes: A super through ball from Todibo on the right, Bowen centering, Ings fluffing and -Summerville slid in to put the ball into the net. London Stadium erupted. Summerville, shirt swinging à la Ryan Giggs, got a yellow for his celebrations but he didn’t care, The relief was huge. First man he ran to for a celebratory hug was Mohammed Kudus on the sidelines.
A United reply came after under ten minutes as West Ham got pushed deeper and deeper: Casemiro heading in to equalise. Now the tension was palpable. 88 minutes and VAR inexplicably awarded a penalty to West Ham after Danny Ings fell over De Light’s shin. Who would step up? Summerville had hold of the ball. Gave it to Bowen. 12 minutes announced whilst waiting for the penalty. Deep breath and – Bowen scored bottom right. 12 minutes of nerves to go! Rodriguez off, Cress on.
Brilliant added-on time defending from Wan Bissaka, Todibo and man of the match Summerville. 101 minutes and counting..tense..park the bus time. One last Fernandez shot went wide. 113 minutes. still it went on. Finally!!! You’d think we’d just won a semi final. I need a lie down. Never was ‘a game of two halves’ more apt.
