West Ham Home Carabao Cup 2nd round Lost 1 – 4
You never know what value you’re going to get out of a Carabao Cup ticket and, despite the relatively high price, Southampton and West Ham made 13 starting changes between them for their second round tie; only five were for Saints, with Welington, Bragg, Akachukwu, Dobbin and Mubama all promoted. That’s probably better than average for this competition and the more experienced home line-up looked on course for victory when Scienza notched a well-taken tenth minute lead, helped by some 2nd XI defending. Centre forward Price was causing a few problems but an equaliser was still a surprise, as was the manner of it: an uncharacteristic error by Peretz who failed to gather a corner and so was beaten by Ajala‘s far post header. We made a sluggish start to the second period, and that should have set alarm bells ringing. The Hammers’ next goal, though, was again down to a mistake by a player who ought to have known better: Stephens’ poor clearance went straight to Ajala who couldn’t believe his luck for a second time. West Ham’s starters may have been mostly unknowns but they had a strong bench and went to it big time around the hour, bringing on Engels Solomon, Castellanos and Bowen. Then, when Welington couldn’t stop Veltman going down his wing to set up Castellanos for an easy finish, the game was getting away from Saints, despite Azaz and Larin entering the fray. Bowen added a fourth with an individual effort to cap a dreadful last 45 minutes for our team – but to be honest it was pretty poor throughout, especially in the quality of the passing,
Not enough candidates for a credible MotM vote, so it’s:
7. Leo Scienza, mainly for the goal.
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