Right then, I’ll be off. Bye!
Jeff Hendrick had scored five goals and created two in the last two seasons combined. Today he got a goal and an assist, a hell of a start. On Sky Graeme Souness is arguing that Wilson’s goal should have been disallowed for dangerous play, given that his foot was about six feet off the ground and his studs were showing, and I have to say if you freeze the replay at the right point it’s a compelling argument.
Callum Wilson is chirpy:
I’m thankful for the goal. First and foremost great team performance, solid at the back, and that’s what gave us the platform today. I’m quite a confident person anyway, I’ve come in the door and my job is to score goals. Iw as confident coming into the game today and for future games. I feel this is a great squad with great potential, I’m just trying to be the finishing piece in the puzzle and put the ball in the net. I like playing against West Ham. It’s not disrespectful, I just keep scoring against them. For me it’s about being consistent, building on this performance and taking it into the next game.
Jacob Steinberg was at the London Stadium to see West Ham’s season start with a wimper:
The only consolation for West Ham was that no supporters were present to turn on the board. In normal circumstances the mood would have been toxic after a display that did little to alter the impression that David Moyes’s team are in for yet another relegation battle.
Small mercies. One game in and West Ham are already in crisis. Under pressure after the controversial sale of Grady Diangana to West Brom, they needed a response. Instead, they were uninspired as Newcastle earned an impressive win thanks to fine finishes from Callum Wilson and Jeff Hendrick on their debuts.
Much more here:
Final score: West Ham 0-2 Newcastle
90+5 mins: It’s all over! Newcastle claim three deserved points, West Ham show the world why all their fans are so depressed.
90+4 mins: What’s worse, Newcastle go straight up the other end and have a chance for a third, but Almiron’s shot deflects wide.
90+3 mins: Yarmolenko’s shot is pretty decent. Darlow dives to his right to push it away but it goes straight into Lascelles and could have bounced anywhere from there. It bounces to a defender.
90+1 mins: Antonio drives in a low cross, actually a pretty decent centre that was just begging to be turned in, but none of his teammates anticipated it.
90+1 mins: The good news for West Ham fans is that they’ll only have to endure five more minutes of this (well, five minutes and then another nine months).
89 mins: Felipe Anderson comes on for Bowen.
88 mins: Almiron, from the left side of the area, spins and passes across the edge of the box to Hendrick. He controls, waits for a couple of defenders to close him down, and then, from a standing position, hammers a shot into the top corner from 18 yards!
GOAL! West Ham 0-2 Newcastle (Hendrick, 87 mins)
A rocket from another Newcastle debutant!
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85 mins: Callum Wilson’s race is run, and Miguel Almiron will replace him.
84 mins: West Ham win another corner, which is played short, bunged into the area, and sent feebly goalwards by Haller. Darlow catches.
80 mins: West Ham do win a corner, which falls to Yarmolenko outside the area. His shot goes wide, but the referee charitably gives them another corner anyway.
79 mins: West Ham are WestHamly attempting to find an equaliser, by repeatedly running with the ball towards the Newcastle area and hoping vainly that the defenders leave them alone.
75 mins: Chance! Well, there should have been a chance! Hendrick plays Manquillo into space on the right, and any kind of decent cross would have set up Wilson for a likely goal, but his cross was rubbish so it didn’t. Joelinton comes on for Saint-Maximin.
73 mins: Manquillo requires a bit of physiotherapeutic assistance here, so there’s a bit of a break in play.
71 mins: Yarmolenko fouls Saint-Maximin and the referee books Soucek. The VAR eventually informs him of his mistake, and he books Yarmolenko instead. In further officiating news Manquillo had been booked a few seconds earlier, for a foul on Bowen.
69 mins: All sorts of stuff is going on now. A ball driven across the area hits Hendrick, leading to loud handball appeals from every West Ham player, even those who couldn’t possibly have seen anything.
Updated
68 mins: Plus the substitution is made, with Noble and Fornals going off.
67 mins: The ball rolls off the pitch, and to get it back as quickly as possible Antonio tackles Steve Agnew, Newcastle’s assistant manager , who had controlled it. The referee has to have a word, so actually Antonio’s efforts had the opposite effect to the one he intended.
65 mins: Cometh the hour, cometh Yamolenko and Haller. West Ham are preparing a double substitution, with the two players coming on enjoying a preparatory Kevin Nolan iPad presentation.
64 mins: The best through-ball to Antonio all night, and it came from a Newcastle player. Darlow races from his goal and just about gets to it first.
61 mins: West Ham win a corner, which Carroll thumps clear with his head. West Ham are showing a bit of fight, though they’ll probably need more than Antonio long throws and hopeful set pieces for it to come to much.
58 mins: Moyes immediately tells his subs to get warmed up, but hopefully the entire match will heat up from here. Saint-Maximin, who to be fair has been enormous fun throughout, crosses from the left but it’s headed behind by Diop.
GOAL! West Ham 0-1 Newcastle (Wilson, 56 mins)
The new boy gives his side the lead, and the game has the goal it needed! Manquillo’s cross deflects up off Fornals but Hendrick flicks it on and Wilson turns it in at the near post, getting his boot to the ball before Fabianski can get a fist to it!
Updated
54 mins: Fredericks fouls Saint-Maximin. He might have got the ball, but he definitely got booked.
51 mins: I think it’s fair to say that half time hasn’t brought an instant improvement.
Updated
48 mins: Newcastle work a good situation here, but when Wilson gets the ball in the centre he doesn’t know Carroll is free on the left. Eventually he spots his attacking partner, but his cross deflects wide.
46 mins: Peeeeep! Mark Noble gets the second half started.
“Well we wondered how West Ham v Newcastle would follow the Liverpool v Leeds showpiece and now we know,” writes Brian Withington. “Chronologically.”
It’s been, well, you know, OK. It’s not bad, certainly. Wilson has played reasonably well on his Newcastle debut. Both teams look a morale-boosting goal away from potentially firing. If the goal continues to not come, though, I fear it might become increasingly unlikely until the game eventually fades away into nothingness.
Half time: West Ham 0-0 Newcastle
45+2 mins: It didn’t.
45+1 mins: There’ll only be one minute of stoppage time, unless something very exciting happens during it.
44 mins: Every now and then Antonio just decides, irrespective of his position on the pitch and the number of defenders around him, to just have a shot. There have been two this half where the chance of scoring has been pretty close to none whatsoever, and which have just been thwacked straight into one of several nearby defenders.
42 mins: The game is currently hovering somewhere near quite good, but might need a goal to actually get there.
38 mins: An excellent move from West Ham. Rice’s pass to Fredericks is superb, his pull-back to Bowen is very good, and his shot flies high.
36 mins: Newcastle criminally fail to convert an excellent attacking opportunity into a shot on goal. Saint-Maximin’s pass is a bit behind Wilson, whose first touch takes him away from goal, and from there he’s crowded out.
34 mins: West Ham hit the bar again! Fredericks’ cross from the right looks mishit and generally poor, but Lewis can’t get a foot to it and it bounces to Fornals, whose shot deflects into the woodwork!
32 mins: Chance! Shelvey’s long pass hits Carroll on the chest, and he brings it down, touches past Ogbonna, and then shoots. It would have been an excellent goal, but the shot comes off Ogbonna and goes wide.
Updated
31 mins: Newcastle break, but it ends with Wilson slightly underhitting his pass to Shelvey, who has to pause to wait for the ball to catch up with him before shooting into the side netting.
30 mins: Ogbonna and Cresswell leave the ball to each other, Hendrick nips in to win it, and Ogbonna goes down with a case of mild embarrassment. When the ball next goes out of play the game is paused for a while as he recovers.
29 mins: Close! Now Fredericks crosses from the right, and Soucek heads just wide. That’s as close as the home side has come today.
Updated
27 mins: Newcastle are 5-1 up on shots and much the better side. Though as I write that Antonio runs infield from the left before sending West Ham’s second shot of the night straight at Darlow.
25 mins: Carroll heads well over the bar from Shelvey’s corner, though it was from far enough out that it would have had to be a miracle wonderheader to go in.
23 mins: Shelvey’s shot hits the wall and loops into Fabianski’s arms.
22 mins: Newcastle win a free-kick, just within shooting range. Shelvey eyes it up.
21 mins: Newcastle’s new boys link up again, Lewis crossing from the left and Wilson half-volleying wide of the near post.
Updated
16 mins: Diop has the ball in his own half, under no pressure. He looks left. He looks right. He looks straight ahead. He checks left again. And then he turns and passes back to Fabianski, and then does an exaggerated shoulder-shrug as if to say, “So what else was there for me then?”
13 mins: Ogbonna hits the bar! Noble floats the ball into the box, and Ogbonna does well to get a bit of pace and direction on his header, but it loops over Darlow, onto the bar, and over!
13 mins: It ends with Hayden tripping Antonio from behind - unnecessarily, because Lascelles had come in from the other side and won the ball anyway - and getting booked.
12 mins: A prolonged spell in which neither team does anything very much.
9 mins: Carroll again leads with an arm as he jumps with Fredericks, and concedes another free-kick. Stuart Attwell is not at all a fan of his elbow-first policy.
6 mins: Chance! Shelvey’s corner finds Fernández, running across the box to win the header short of the near post, but Fabianski flaps his header clear!
6 mins: Shelvey’s long pass sets Wilson running against Ogbonna and comfortably winning the race, but his cross from the right is cleared for a corner.
4 mins: Newcastle’s first chance of the new season has new signings at its heart, as Lewis crosses from the left and Wilson heads wide of the near post.
3 mins: I’m not at all a fan of unclear numbers on the back of striped shirts. Newcastle should really have a couple of points docked for that.
1 min: Peeeeeeep! Newcastle kick off, hoick the ball long, Andy Carroll flattens Soucek with a windmilling elbow and gets a talking-to from the referee. There was a VAR check on a possible red card, which would have been quite the start to a new season, but Carroll isn’t even booked.
Alan Smith calls Newcastle’s Andy Carroll-Callum Wilson frontline “a big-man little-man scenario”, which seems a stretch when Wilson is 5ft 11in.
Out come the players, and up go the bubbles. Football ahoy!
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At the start of his interview with Sky David Moyes executes the most forced smile. It’s as if there’s a thread attached to each corner of his mouth and it’s being pulled by assistants lurking just off-screen. Anyway, he hopes his side can carry on their good form from the end of last season.
Well we hope so. We’ve got basically the same group of players, and if we can show the same form we finished - since we came back from lockdown especially we showed good form ... We’d started to win well in some of the games, and do a bit better here, so we’re hoping that can continue. We’re probably only six weeks away from when that finished. It wasn’t long ago. We had a quick break, we’re all back at it. Overall they’re all fit and ready to go.
He’s asked how team spirit is, after a difficult pre-season:
We’ve actually I think had a very good pre-season. We had time away, the players were in good spirit, obviously because we finished the season strongly. I think we’re quite good. I mean, the group. There may be other things you’re alluding to, but the group within the dressing-room has been really good.
Steve Bruce seems chirpy:
There’s nothing quite like the addition of two, three, four players - five players! - into the squad and of course it gives everyone a lift, whether you’re the coach, the supporters more importantly and especially one that is a centre-forward of course. I’m delighted with what we’ve done. Now we need to take the work onto the pitch. There’s nothing quite like a signing or two to brighten the spirits of everybody. Let’s hope we can get a couple of results along the way to brighten everybody up.
Sky haven’t turned their attention to this game yet, excited as they still are about Liverpool’s narrow victory over Leeds. I can confirm that there are some footballers at the London Stadium, and they are preparing for a game of football.
West Ham’s women have also been in action this evening. The less said about that the better.
It's full time in Dagenham and another three points for @ArsenalWFC in the #BarclaysFAWSL 👏#WHUARS pic.twitter.com/sxHCGyp9Au
— Barclays FA Women's Super League (@BarclaysFAWSL) September 12, 2020
Aaron Cresswell’s anticipated return is West Ham’s only change to the team that drew 1-1 with Aston Villa on the last day of last season. Ben Johnson drops to the bench - the other six substitutes were all also on the bench at the start of their last game. So from the 18-man matchday squad for the Villa game Cresswell comes in, Conor Coventry drops out, and the other 17 names are the same.
The teams!
The team sheets have been handed in, and tonight’s star performers will be as follows, with highlights including debuts for Jamal Lewis, Jeff Hendrick and Callum Wilson:
West Ham: Fabianski, Fredericks, Diop, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Soucek, Rice, Bowen, Noble, Fornals, Antonio. Subs: Balbuena, Yarmolenko, Felipe Anderson, Lanzini, Haller, Johnson, Randolph.
Newcastle: Darlow, Manquillo, Fernandez, Lascelles, Lewis, Shelvey, Hayden, Hendrick, Wilson, Carroll, Saint-Maximin. Subs: Joelinton, Ritchie, Krafth, Fraser, Almiron, Gillespie, Sean Longstaff.
Referee: Stuart Attwell.
Our line-up for #WHUNEW... pic.twitter.com/emM37y67JL
— West Ham United (@WestHam) September 12, 2020
TEAM-NEWS 🚨
— Newcastle United FC (@NUFC) September 12, 2020
This is how we line-up for this evening's season opener at the London Stadium.
HWTL! ⚫️⚪️
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Hello world!
Well then. It’s hard to know what to make of this game, between two teams that have taken very different approaches to this transfer window (so far). West Ham have not exactly transformed the squad that flirted with relegation last season, with the permanent transfer of Tomas Soucek, who signed from Slavia Prague initially on loan in January, the only action their chequebook has seen. They will be hoping to carry their decent form from the end of last season into the start of this one, though last weekend’s 5-3 friendly defeat to Bournemouth doesn’t inspire an enormous amount of confidence and they seem to have a few issues with their squad, particularly at full-back.
“They were good towards the end of the season but we have a chance that’s for sure,” said Newcastle’s Steve Bruce as he looked forward to this game. “We took four points off them last year and had one of our best displays away from home down there. Whether that will stand us in good stead this season? I hope so. Let’s see.”
Let’s see indeed. Newcastle have had rather more encouraging dealings with Bournemouth in the final days of the summer break, bringing in Callum Wilson and Ryan Fraser, and hoping both rediscover their free-scoring, wildly-creative form of 2018-19 rather than recreating the less inspiring action of last season. They’ve also added the experienced Jeff Hendrick and the youthful Jamal Lewis to their squad, and have memories of winning 3-2 (having led 3-0) at the London Stadium last November. The teams’ last 11 encounters have featured 34 goals and very little boredom, so we’ll hope for more of the same this evening. Whatever we get, welcome!
