West Ham have them, the same as every club has them: But ours seem to be the most irksome. Whether it be – in the old days – Bolton’s Kevin Davies or current nemesis Callum Wilson from Newcastle leading the ‘goals against’ Hammers tally with 12: There are irksome, irritating players who seem to love to score against us and always seem to achieve the inevitable and grab a goal, even when we think we are headed for a result.
Yesterday Dominic Calvert Lewin, very much one in the ‘loves to score against us’ category, was kept more or less silent and for that, I do feel West Ham’s defensive duo deserve some credit.
Calvert Lewin has netted six times against West Ham, three in the Premier League and all of those three at London Stadium. You may remember it was Calvert Lewin who provided the winner last season in Everton’s 1-0 win at Stratford. So it was pleasing after the event to look back and find some kind of positive from that performance. The consistency of full back pairing of Todibo and Kilman gives us a foundation to build on now, if not something to shout about as yet.
I lost count of the headed clearances which the two completed successfully: It did feel that Everton were wasting their time with high crosses into the box with Kilman and Todibo looking secure.
Max Kilman himself was actually quite upbeat when speaking to whufc.com, perhaps being relieved after registering the clubs first clean sheet in fifteen games we can forgive him his contentment with the mediocrity of the overall performance. The Hammers £40 million man confirmed:”
We have to take the positives from the game,” said Kilman, 27. “I think our defending is probably the biggest positive – we defended well throughout.
“Going up against Dominic Calvert-Lewin was a tough test for me. He’s very powerful and has a really good leap, so I had to make sure I was ready to go up against him, and thankfully we were able to keep him at bay.
“From a defensive point of view, not conceding is important. It’s something you can build a foundation from, so we need to do that and hopefully we can get more clean sheets as the season goes on.
“I think in the first half we took a bit of time to settle into the game, but in the second half we created some really good opportunities, and were actually unfortunate not to come away with the win, so there were lots of things to be pleased about across the pitch.”
Steady on, Max. we’re all happy that no goals went in – but anyone watching the game would take issue with that last half a dozen words!
