West Ham 2-3 Liverpool

Today (Sunday 9th December), Liverpool won 3-2 in a dramatic away win against West Ham United. All three of Liverpool’s goals were scored by ex-West Ham players, Johnson, Cole and Shelvey. West Ham’s goals came from an own goal from Gerrard and a penalty, scored by Noble.

In the first 10 minutes, I have to admit I was worried. West Ham were attacking well, and Liverpool were just sitting back and absorbing the pressure, not looking too comfortable. However, Liverpool looked fairly threatening on the counter, and so it proved on the 10 minute mark. Glen Johnson absolutely tormented the West Ham defence, darting through two or three players before smashing it into the top corner brilliantly from outside the box. It was a superb goal, and for me Johnson was our best player throughout the match. After this we played excellently, and we were unlucky not to add another one, with both Shelvey and Sterling coming close.

However, in the 35th minute, the match was turned on its head. The referee, Lee Probert, awarded West Ham a penalty for a dubious Joe Allen handball. The ball was smashed at him from a yard away, and he couldn’t really have got out of the way, although his hands were raised. Mark Noble slotted it away comfortably. This spurred the Hammers on, and they got back into the game. Things got worse for Liverpool just before the break, when a ball whipped in by Jarvis was headed in by Steven Gerrard. The own goal was almost comical, as the header was so well paced, and would have been a quality goal had it been at the other end of the pitch!

Fortunately, Liverpool came out strongly in the second half, but for about half an hour the sides were at a stalemate, with nobody coming up with many particularly meaningful attacks. However, on 75 minutes, Liverpool finally drew level. An exquisite ball from Sterling put Joe Cole through on goal, who finished beautifully into the bottom corner. This served as a platform to spur Liverpool on to the win, and from this point on they were by far the most positive side. They were rewarded for this positivity when substitute Jordan Henderson whipped in a wonderful ball, aimed at Shelvey. James Collins just beat him to it, and somehow ended up inadvertently lobbing his own keeper; the second time this has happened to poor Jaaskelinen recently. Admittedly this was a rather fortuitous way to regain the lead, but on balance I think we deserved the goal.

West Ham gave Liverpool a few scares in the dying moments of the game, but they held on for the victory, gaining us a much needed 3 points. With that we finally move back up into the top half of the table, and are in fact currently only 4 points away from a Champions League spot. Overall I think we gave a great performance, and really showed that we can cope without Suarez. Jordan Henderson impressed me when he came on, and Sterling looked good in the second half, but as I said earlier my Man of the Match has to go to Johnson.