Slaven Bilic does not want his players to look up or down. He does not want them studying the fixture list. West Ham United’s manager will be happy as long as they relax, play with passion and quality and, as the old cliche goes, take each game as it comes. “You can’t approach it differently,” Bilic said. “You can’t approach it like ‘today, we are home to Crystal Palace, three points, and then Arsenal, one point’ because this happens.”
From Bilic’s perspective, Mark Clattenburg happened. Clattenburg was an unpopular man around Upton Park because of his controversial decision to send off Cheikhou Kouyaté for a high challenge on Dwight Gayle midway through the second half, allowing Crystal Palace to snatch a late equaliser and stall West Ham’s push for Champions League qualification by securing a 2-2 draw.
Three points behind fourth-placed Manchester City, West Ham were furious. They will appeal against Kouyaté’s red card and feel that they are not getting the rub of the green with officials at the moment, thinking back to Chelsea’s dodgy late penalty in the 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge on 19 March and Anthony Martial’s equaliser in the 1-1 draw in their FA Cup quarter-final at Manchester United being allowed to stand, despite Bastian Schweinsteiger’s foul on Darren Randolph.
For all their indignation, however, there is an argument that West Ham could have done more to kill off their opponents in all of those games. Having recovered from the sloppy defending that allowed Damien Delaney to give Palace an early advantage, they led 2-1 at half-time, thanks to Manuel Lanzini’s equaliser and Dimitri Payet’s fifth direct free-kick in 2016. Dropped points from winning positions cannot simply be put down to referees; a touch more ruthlessness and West Ham would be fourth.
“Okay, fair enough but it’s no good if you always need to score three goals to win,” Bilic said. “I’m not talking that you can win the championship or whatever with winning 1-0, 1-0, 1-0 because it is not only about your defence, it is also about the opponent. But you can’t always score three goals.”
West Ham made errors for both Palace goals, a defensive calamity allowing Gayle to equalise with 15 minutes left, and Bilic hopes his back four will be more solid, with James Tomkins, on the bench here, available after two months out with a calf injury. With Sam Byram also missing, Michail Antonio has been used as a makeshift right-back and he was targeted by Palace’s flying wingers, Yannick Bolasie and Bakary Sako.
The return of Tomkins is a timely boost as West Ham approach a defining period. With fourth place and an FA Cup semi-final against Everton up for grabs, they host Arsenal in the league on Saturday and United in the Cup four days later.
“We have a big enough squad, a lot of energy and a lot of confidence,” Bilic said. “Ginger Collins and Sam Byram, they are going to come back. Even without, we would go for both, try to finish as high as possible and try to reach the semi-finals.“
Palace are already in the semi-finals. Yet their FA Cup run has not been matched by their league form. Although it was an improved display against West Ham, a draw stretched their winless Premier League run to 14 matches and kept them seven points above the bottom three.
Alan Pardew mentioned those alarming statistics in a meeting with his players on Friday night. “That was a normal, tactical meeting but probably a little bit longer than most. I just wanted to question the players and ask whether they actually realise what has gone on. Did they know the figures that the press have been using about us because you’d be surprised.
“The players don’t always take on board what has been going on. They go into training and their view is that: ‘Oh, it’s the next game.’ Of course, as managers we are overloaded with stats and information. So I just wanted to remind them of where we were and I think I got a good response.”
Pardew was asked if the players were aware of the numbers. “They certainly knew after,” he said. “I made it very clear about my feelings. That is all you are going to get.”
Man of the match Bakary Sako (Crystal Palace)
