ANT & DECKED!
Striker’s awesome foursome sends Norwich down
THE manner of their departure, so long expected, so widely a nt i c i pat e d a nd s o di l i gentl y planned for, felt rather regrettable.
Norwich City, who still pride themselves on their dignity, decorum and Delia Smith, saw their flit across the stage brought to a brutal end by a team owned by two men known by some in football circles as ‘The Dildo Brothers’.
The result was not for the squeamish: Cook Books 0, Porn Mags 4.
As Norwich sank without a fight, their brief, naive and sometimes uplifting cameo in the Premier League over but their finances very much in tact, so West Ham rose.
This win, fired by four goals from the superb Michail Antonio, should be enough to put another season mired in under-achievement and discontent out of its misery.
David Moyes, their manager, deserves plenty of credit for dragging his team away from the disaster of relegation.
Their crushing victory over hosts who have not won a point since the restart and have now lost seven League games in a row, put them six points clear of Bournemouth, who lead the increasingly forlorn battle to escape the bottom three.
West Ham thoroughly ly deserved their vic- - t o r y. T h e y w e r e vastly superior in all departments. Mark Noble ran the show in midfield and Norw i c h ’s flimsy defence had no answer t o Antonio, , who completed his hat- attrick 10 minutes after halftime and added a fourth ourth 17 minutes from the end.
The result did not flatter West Ham even if it did not spare Norwich, who put up about as much of a struggle as a piece of wet lettuce.
At least they were spared some of the added agonies of relegation that would have come with a crowd in mourning. There were no kids here, their reddened, crumpled faces buried in a parent’s shoulder. Just defeated players, shoulders sagging, heads down, trudging silently to the home changing room.
Even if Norwich were abject, the result was also a reminder that West Ham have the talent to be occupying a far loftier position.
Moyes’ biggest problem does not lie on the pitch. It lies in the fact that West Ham have become a club that no longer recognises its constituency with a constituency that no longer recognises its club.
Norwich are West Ham’s opposites in that regard. They are confident o f t hei r pl a c e in t hei r community and guard it so judiciously that, rightly or wrongly, they refused to allow any ambition of staying in the top flight to persuade them to spend transfer fees or o wages that might leave them in trouble if t hey went down. They made a bargain b with themselves: s they would enjoy e being in the Premier Pr League as much muc as t hey could without withou losing sight of the health of their t club. And they achieved that. They went straight back down but they had a few moments of magic along the way. Their bravura goal against Manchester City here in September, when Teemu Pukki ended a lovely move by squaring to Todd Cantwell to slide into an empty net, was a champagne moment in the midst of a magical 3- 2 victory. Manager Daniel Farke had to be content with occasional euphoria like that. He said after the match he expected to be in charge of the club’s attempt to win promotion next season.
Norwich always suspected they might inhabit some kind of no man’s land, suspended between the Premier League and the Championship and that is how it worked out.
They can live with that. They have seen too many clubs destroyed by trying to keep up with oil states and oligarchs and they decided they did not want to go down that route.
They did not want to be consigned to the same dark worlds as Portsmouth, Bolton, Wigan and Sunderland and be facing a plunge through the leagues. And that is how it worked out. They are down but they will fight another day.
The end, when it came, came quickly. They were overrun in their empty, echoing stadium.
West Ham had an early appeal for a penalty turned down when Jarrod Bowen went on a blistering run down the right and hurtled into the penalty area.
Emiliano Buendia tracked back wi t h h i m b u t could not keep up and appeared to shove him. Bowen fell to the floor but the referee waved a s i d e West Ham’s pleas for action. West Ham dominated possession and they had another chance inside the first 10 minutes. Antonio jinked in from the left and laid a neat ball back to Tomas Soucek on the edge of the area.
Soucek was unmarked but his attempt at a precise sidefoot into the corner went wide.
Antonio came close a couple of minutes later when Aaron Cresswell curled a cross into his path and his prodded volley was pushed around the post by Tim Krul.
Norwich put that corner behind and, from the second corner, Issa Diop flicked Bowen’s kick on at the near post and Antonio rifled it into the net from close range.
Norwich managed a rare foray forward 10 minutes before halft i me when Pukki, pursued by Soucek, ran at the retreating West Ham defence.
Soucek threw him off balance with a tug at his shoulder just as he was about to shoot but, as the ball ran loose, the referee waved play on. West Ham counter-attacked and Bowen lashed a shot across the face of goal at the other end.
Four minutes before the interval, Krul kept Norwich in the game with a superb save.
Noble, t he game’s dominant player, clipped a cross into the Norwich box and Soucek leaned into it and met it sweetly on the volley.
It was arrowing towards the top corner when Krul leapt to push it away to safety with his left hand.
The game had slipped into firsthalf injury time when West Ham appeared to seal Norwich’s fate.
Noble took a free-kick from the left-hand side of the penalty area. Antonio was marked by two Norwich defenders but he rose above both of them and flicked the ball past Krul at close range. It was a suitably soft goal for Norwich to concede.
Ten minutes after the interval, Antonio grabbed his first hat-trick in professional football.
He ran on to a perfectly weighted through ball from Noble and slid his shot low to Krul’s left.
Krul got down to it well but it ballooned back up off his left hand and Antonio reacted quickly to head the rebound into the empty net.
Norwich sagged. They knew it was over. There were still more than 15 minutes to go when Antonio scored his fourth.
It was the simplest of the lot. Noble freed Ryan Fredericks down the right and he drilled a cross to the near post where Antonio turned it into the net from close range.
He had scored as many goals in 75 minutes as during the entire season.
‘It is an amazing feeling,’ Antonio said. ‘This is my first match ball and hopefully I can get some more. It’s been free- flowing attacking football since we came back.
‘It eases pressure on us massively. The pressure is now on Bournemouth and Aston Villa. We just need to concentrate on ourselves now and not let this drop. We believe we’re going to be safe.’
NORWICH CITY (4-2-3-1): Krul 6; Aarons 5, Godfrey 5, Klose 4, Lewis 4; Vrancic 4 (McLean 78min), Tettey 6; Buendia 5 (Martin 71min, 5), Stiepermann 4 (Idah 71, 5), Hernandez 5, (Cantwell 71, 5); Pukki 5 (Rupp 71, 5). Booked: Stiepermann. Subs (not used): Trybull, Drmic, Duda, McGovern.
WEST HAM (4-2-3-1): Fabianski 6; Fredericks 6, Diop 7, Ogbonna 6 (Balbuena 87), Cresswell 6; Noble 9 (Wilshere 80), Rice 7; Soucek 7, Bowen 7 (Yarmolenko 83), Antonio 9 (Haller 80); Fornals 6 (Masuaku 83). Subs (not used): Lanzini, Ajeti, Randolph, Johnson.
Referee: K Friend (Leicestershire) 7.