Key events
20 min: Great save from Areola! Barnes redirects a Trippier cross-shot and West Ham’s keeper is forced to react quickly and fling himself to his left, tipping the ball around the post. From the resulting corner, taken short, there are half-hearted penalty appeals from Newcastle, as Guimaraes tumbles in West Ham’s box. But the referee, and subsequently VAR, waves play on.
18 min: A nice little slipped through ball from Guimaraes finds Barnes, but the Englishman gets his angles all wrong, with a dinked finish flying well wide.
15 min: A lull in play as Newcastle ping it around the back a bit without creating anything of note.
13 min: Joelinton is penalised for a tug of Soucek’s shirt in an aerial duel. I’m struggling to think of a taller central midfield pairing.
11 min: Barnes, who will surely start in that left wing position in the Carabao Cup final if he stays fit, cuts in off his flank and releases Murphy. But it’s a poor pass into the middle towards Isak.
9 min: “I think this photo of Scott Parker with the Intertoto C̶u̶p̶ Plaque is a perfect metaphor for the psychological state of Newcastle (and probably West Ham) fans right now, emails Chris Paraskevas. “Newcastle fans have been spending the last month trying to ignore our pre-Cup-Final-Doom-Spiral® while Hammers fans have (probably) spent the last month trying to forget Konstantinos Mavropanos is in their squad. I’m actually not too sure anyone wants this fixture to go ahead? If someone does thw “Glenn Roeder Shuffle” as a goal celebration it could be worth it, I guess.”
7 min: It’s been a bright start by West Ham. Graham Potter is hopping around the technical area and clapping wildly.
5 min: Bowen wriggles clear of Joelinton and whips a dangerous cross into towards Newcastle’s near post. Burn skews his clearance and is relieved to see it fly harmlessly over his own bar.
3 min: Kudus loses the ball in midfield and Trippier is onto it in a flash. Only a brilliant sliding tackle from Kilman stops a dangerous Newcastle counter-attack. Kilman was out of position and fully committed to that tackle. He had to win the ball, and he did.
1 min: Forty-three seconds on the clock and West Ham have a golden chance to open the scoring! Kudus turns Schar inside out on the left wing, crosses towards Soucek at the back post. The Czech international takes a clumsy first touch but still evades Livramento but blazes over from six yards out with his weaker foot. Soucek was on the stretch as he chased that heavy first touch but still should have buried it!
Peeeeeeeep!
We’re underway in east London.
I also did the MBM reverse fixture earlier this season, where the Hammers were surprise 2-0 winners at St James Park in November.
The two teams are out at the London Stadium. West Ham in their famous claret and blue, Newcastle in their changed turquoise/white strip.
Michail Antonio is at the stadium tonight and I’m pleased to say he is upright and walking around as he receives a warm round of applause from the home fans, although he is fighting back tears. What an emotional welcome for the striker who was involved in a horror car crash just three months ago.
This was an interesting story from last week. If Angel Gomes was to join West Ham, that would be an even bigger squeeze on the minutes of James Ward-Prowse, Carlos Soler and Guido Rodríguez, among others. Ward-Prowse starts tonight again and his return to the XI has coincided with those wins over Arsenal and Leicester, so he’s doing something right.
Russell Martin, the former Southampton manager, is the guest pundit on Sky Sports tonight, here in the UK. I wonder where he might end up. Many will be put off by the way that Southampton played in the Premier League this year, but many feel that the Saints have got worse since his departure. I would suggest that he didn’t have the players good enough to fit his system, although he is not without fault.
Remember the season previous, Burnley were relegated under Vincent Kompany, who had a similar tactical evangelism. And the Belgian got the Bayern job. I’m not suggesting that Martin will be manager of a European giant anytime soon but I wonder if a European club might take a punt. There are other British coaches, such as Liam Rosenior and Will Still, doing well abroad.
If you had forgotten about Glenn Roeder, this is worth a read. It was written by Louise Taylor in the wake of Roeder’s death in 2021.
It’s worth noting that his stint as Newcastle manager was badly hurt by the injury (injuries?) to Michael Owen, who was not only unavailable for most of Roeder’s tenure but also took up plenty of Newcastle’s transfer and wage budget at the time.
Well, Howe hasn’t rested anyone. Fair play, that is Newcastle’s strongest side – remember that both Sven Botman and Lewis Hall are out with longish-term injuries and Antony Gordon is suspended, following his red cad at Brighton in the FA Cup.
Speaking of Brighton, not a great look for them or West Ham loanee Evan Ferguson that he can’t get a kick for a side that is lacking a centre-forward. Jarrod Bowen leads the line again for the Hammers, who to be fair beat Arsenal (away) and Leicester in the last two games.
The teams!
West Ham: Areola, Todibo, Kilman, Cresswell, Wan-Bissaka, Ward-Prowse, Alvarez, Scarles, Kudus, Soucek, Bowen.
Subs: Fabianski, Soler, Lucas Paqueta, Mavropanos, Luis Guilherme, Ings, Rodriguez, Emerson Palmieri, Ferguson.
Newcastle: Pope, Trippier, Schar, Burn, Livramento, Guimaraes, Tonali, Joelinton, Murphy, Isak, Barnes.
Subs: Dubravka, Wilson, Targett, Krafth, Osula, Willock, Longstaff, Miley, Neave.
Referee: Michael Salisbury (Lancashire)
Preamble
Hello world, and welcome to the game that absolutely nobody knows as The Glenn Roeder Derby. The late West Ham and Newcastle manager, who also featured nearly 200 times for the Magpies as a player in the 1980s, became the first person to win anything with the north-east side in 37 years when Newcastle won the Intertoto Cup (well, they were handed it by default as the last surviving Intertoto entrants in the Uefa Cup) in 2006 – following a seventh-placed finish the season previous – under Roeder’s stewardship.
While the Intertoto is not recognised as a major trophy, meaning Newcastle’s drought continues to stretch back to 1969. The Roeder years are not looked on particularly fondly by either West Ham (despite finishing seventh in 2001-02) or Newcastle fans, but how both teams would take a seventh-placed finish and a bit of silverware this year.
West Ham’s season, however, is pretty much done. Out of all cups and in the league, they are too good to go down and too inconsistent to qualify for anything else. There have been signs of life under Graham Potter, who will surely be using the rest of the campaign to figure out a gameplan for next season.
For Newcastle trip to east London tonight is a little more pertinent. Not only are they just about in the hunt for Champions League/Europa League/Europa Conference League qualification in the league, but this is the final game before the Carabao Cup final on Sunday against Liverpool. Will Eddie Howe look to rest a few key players? Or could that be detrimental to the league season, and the sharpness, form and fitness for the players on Sunday? We will find out very shortly.
Kick-off: 8pm GMT.