Hammer Blows

Monday 30th January 2023: FA Cup 4th Round: Pride Park: Derby County vs West Ham United

Casting my mind back to January once more, I completed a mad weekend of FA Cup fourth round football with a trip down to League One Derby County hoping to see them pull off an cupset against top tier West Ham Untied.

Derby were flying in the league; fourth in the table with a 9 point cushion to the bottom of the play off places: and as such they would have been confident of beating a Hammer’s team struggling to ward off relegation fears.

A quick perusal of the form book seemed to back up this confidence, after all what threat could a team that had only one away win to their name since boxing day pose to hosts that hadn’t lost over 90 minutes since 21st October. A huge one.

The Hammer’s form may have been intermittent at best, but they still had Premier League quality on their side and a confidence boosting win over Everton in their last game to hold onto. They had also overcome high-flying league rivals Brentford away from home in the last round, so the unfamiliar surroundings of Pride Park were unlikely to faze them much.

So it proved to be, with the carrot of a trip to Old Trafford in the next round perhaps proving too tempting for the visitors to collapse. Derby threw every at the Hammers and comfortably had the better of the opening exchanges.

The Rams charged down the left from kick-off. Within 30 seconds they had gored a hole in the Hammer’s defence to fashion the opening chance of the match. Unfortunately the cut back from the bye-line hit a Hammer’s toe, deflecting it away from the boot waiting expectantly to smash Derby into the lead.

The opening 9 minutes was all Derby as they threw the full kitchen at their visitors. Faster into the tackle and more skilful on the ball than their illustrious visitors it looked at this early stage that it was only a matter of time before the host’s broke through the Hammer’s dogged defence.

Shock reverberated through the stadium in the 10th minute when the visitors, who hadn’t been in the game at all in the opening minutes sprung from nowhere to take the lead.

The first hammer blow

In their first move of any note Hammer’s took the lead. Tomas Soucek blasted down the left and Derby were caught by such complete surprise by the blow that not a single player moved to halt his progress. The original shot was parried well by Wildsmith but the ball landed plush on the boot of Jarrod Bowen.

Bowen needed no second invitation to flash the ball into the unguarded net from point blank range. From nowhere West Ham now had a lead they would never relinquish despite the efforts of the hosts.

Seeing their visitors take the lead so utterly against the run of play enraged the Rams and they threw everything they had at the opposition. It was not enough. The closest they came to a fully deserved equaliser was a gorgeous first time volley by James Collins, that peeled the paint off the bar on it’s way over the top.

Derby’s dominance was particularly noticeable on their left as Tom Barkhuizen had the Hammer’s right back in his back pocket. If only one of his multitude of beautiful crosses had been met with a finish of commensurate quality things could have looked extremely different at the break.

As it was though, when the half-time whistle blew though it was the visitors who held the scoresheet advantage.

This was a travesty and a thorough mis-representation of the situation on the pitch throughout the half. The scoresheet is all that matters though and so West Ham were ahead.

Having half-time to rest and refresh helped the Rams rush out of the traps in the second half and reassert a simillar level of dominance to the level they had in the first half. They were first out of the tunnel and were also the first to create a presentable chance in this half.

Jason Knight decided to take on the Hammer’s single handed. Jinking past opponents on all sides he weaved his way to the edge of the box before arrowing a ball towards goal. Unfortunately the aim on his arrow was wayward and the ball went blasting yards wide of the right post.

It was not long before they created another chance though as Collins picked the ball up in the box with just the keeper to beat. Then he lost his footing and the visitors were able to clear.

The visitors were utterly under the cosh in the opening exchanges of both halves but once those opening exchanges were over first time round they took the lead. This time the opening exchanges lasted half the time that they had at the start of the game and at the end of them this time the visitors delivered the second, decisive hammer blow.

The Second Hammer Blow

Michail Antonio was the man who delivered the killer blow. Bowen, scorer of the first turned provider for the second, weaving through defender on the right was able to open up the home defence like a hot knife through butter. He was then able to find an incisive pass through what was left of the Ram’s defenders to lay the ball into the path of an unmarked Antonio in the six yard box for the striker to prod home into an unguarded net.

This blow seemed to destroy Derby’s belief that they could turn their dominance of possession into the goals they so badly needed to launch an unlikely comeback. Their forward forays became less and less ambitious. Surrendering the goal threat they had possessed for so much of the match was the worst part of their response as it deflated any hope of the game continuing to be a contest.

Perhaps Paul Warne, the Derby manager, sensed the doubt spreading like a virus through his 11 as he dredged the depths of his reserves for a quadruple substitution on the hour mark. Barkhuizen, Max Bird, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and captain Curtis Davies were the players hooked. Eiran Cashin was sent on to take over captaincy duties. Liam Thompson, Lewis Dobbin and Tony Springett joined him on the field of play as part of Warne’s hail mary attempt to turn the scoresheet on it’s head. It didn’t work.

Indeed, it was the visitors who came closest to adding a third goal to proceedings. Further excellent work from Bowen down the wing opened up the home defence before pulling the ball to Said Benrahma. The Algerian spotted that Haudon Roberts was playing Pablo Fornals onside in the centre so he slipped the ball through to his teammate. Fornals blasted the ball towards goal, only to see his effort cannon off Wildsmith’s feet and away from target.

That was the last major chance of a match in which Derby dominated most of the play, but all that will go down in the history books is that they lost 2-0 to their Premier League opponents.

Derby deserved something for their efforts, but got nothing having been undone by two hammer blows.