Moyes gets a fight night
THEY may be only baby steps – inch by painful inch moves towards becoming a proper team again – but West Ham began the long haul back to respectability.
True, David Moyes’ team did not win in their first home game since he took over but they fought back from a goal down to take a point.
And the key word is fought. Moyes’ Hammers battled, scrapped and ground out a draw, thanks to Cheikhou Kouyate’s header on the stroke of half-time.
They had fallen behind to yet another early sucker punch in Moyes’ second game in charge when Marc Albrighton scored from close range.
It could all have gone horribly wrong. But Moyes is starting to instil spirit into his Hammers – and the crowd at the London Stadium responded.
It is not much. But it is better than too much of what Hammers fans have seen in recent weeks.
Moyes surprisingly dropped skipper Mark Noble after the 2-0 defeat at Watford last Sunday.
He brought in Arthur Masuaku instead for his pace in wide areas.
The Hammers went into the game on the back of a run of no wins in five games, a run that saw the end of Slaven Bilic as manager and the club drop into the bottom three.
Leicester, under their new manager Claude Puel, had lost only one game in six before kick-off.
Moyes needed a good start from his team on his home debut. He got the opposite.
Jamie Vardy sped on to Wilfred Ndidi’s pass on the left, and fired in a low cross. Angelo Ogbonna somehow missed the ball and in came Albrighton to ram it into the bottom corner past Joe Hart.
Exactly the same thing had happened at Watford, an early goal, and West Ham never recovered that night.
Leicester thought they might have had a penalty when Albrighton was fouled, but Moyes’ team almost levelled when Manuel Lanzini’s free-kick evaded everyone and Kasper Schmeichel sprawled to save.
There was at least some energy and drive about West Ham, and Schmeichel had to punch out another free-kick, but the worry was that every time Leicester broke they looked dangerous.
When Vicente Iborra put Vardy away, he curled his shot only a foot wide.
Kouyate headed wide when he should have done better, and with Marko Arnautovic again showing some newly discovered aggression and graft on the right, there was hope for Moyes.
West Ham’s dead balls, though, were simply not good enough when they did get into good positions, and Andy Carroll was being starved of ammunition.
And then on the stroke of half-time West Ham at last got it right, even if it was scruffy.
Lanzini swung in a much better corner from the left and Kouyate’s close-range header came off Danny Simpson and past a stranded Schmeichel.
It was a goal that Moyes’ team deserved for sheer persistence if nothing else and it markedly lifted the mood at the London Stadium.
Moyes had pointed out before the game how much
further his team had run last Sunday than in recent games, which may not seem much, but last night they were harrying and hustling Leicester all over the pitch.
The fans, mutinous on Sunday, responded. There was even a chorus of ‘David Moyes’ Claret and Blue Army’.
West Ham, at last this season, were fighting.
And the nippy Masuaku, troubling Leicester down that left, forced Schmeichel into a low save. When Lanzini swung in another accurate cross, Arnautovic, who looks a different player under Moyes, glanced his header over.
Andre Ayew, who replaced Arnautovic, went close late on with an overhead kick.