The resurgence continues

Just a quick one today troops. Our resurgence continued last night then, with. 2-1 victory over the hammers.

We didn’t get off to the best of starts as West Ham’s pressing was causing us all sorts of problems, although some were of our own making as our passing out from the back was extremely poor in the first half hour, culminating with West Ham taking the lead thanks to a thunderous strike from Paqueta. We must admit to some extremely poor defending in the build up however, as once again our right side proved our undoing.

It didn’t take long for us to level the scores however, as a nice pass from Trent found Gakpo, who expertly finished from outside the box. It’s about time we had someone who can score from distance in the team and Gakpo’s play in general is improving week by week, as he settles in to the team and is mastering the false 9 role.

Second half, the frantic pace of what was an enjoyable game continued, although it was a set piece that broke the deadlock. Robbo’s corner met with a bullet header from Matip was enough to secure the points.

We saw the good and the bad of Trent’s new hybrid role, he did some very nice stuff in midfield but the pass was on to Benrahma every time we lost the ball and in truth, West Ham were very wasteful with the opportunities that presented themselves. We also rode our luck at times, Bowen having a goal ruled out for offside after some extremely lackadaisical defending from Virgil, who made practically no effort to block the shot and Fabinho was guilty of similar later in the game but thankfully on that occasion Bowen didn’t get hold of his shot.

How good is it to see Diaz back? I thought he might play within himself having just returned from a lengthy injury lay-off but far from it, he looks like he’s never been away and is an absolute joy to watch on the ball.

The Darwin conundrum continues however and right now it’s difficult to see where he fits in the team. Next season is massive for him and I’m still very interested to see what Klopp’s plan is for him long term because right now I haven’t got a clue.

We continue to climb up the table then, we now find ourselves 6 points behind United and Newcastle in the CL spots, although they have one and two games in hand respectively. We’ve probably left it too late to sneak into the top four but you never know, the pressure could get to the clubs above us. All we can do is keep winning our games. If nothing else, at least it’s enjoyable watching our beloved reds again, after what has been a torrid season.

Right that’s all for today troops, been a busy one so just a quick filler before music night tomorrow. Walk on!!