Erling Braut Haaland (pictured), the best Norwegian footballer since John Carew, take a bow. 11 goals and 4 assists in 7 Austrian bundesliga games – at the moment is shining in the Salburg side, being almost reminiscent of Sadio Mane’s time at Salzburg where he got 31 goals in 63 games but considerably more assists, Haaland somehow only manages to complete an average of 11 passes per game. He certainly has nothing on the passing player Morten Gamst Pedersen is (Yes, he still plays, still going strong at 38 for Tromso in Norway). After 3 goals in a strong Red Bull Salzburg side against Genk in the champions league, his media attention has sky rocketed (I’m sure any football manager players reading would also have heard of him years ago).
In the 6-2 thriller which is the game of the blog between Genk and Salzburg, where Haaland scored a first half hat-trick, Samatta made the first ever appearance in the champions league for a Tanzanian national and scored! At the moment Tanzanian players have scored more than England players in the champions league so far, crazy! Samatta has 5 goals in 6 so far for Genk who haven’t had the best season so far and are sitting in 9th after winning the title last season after Mbwana Samatta got 20 goals in 26 games winning himself the ebony shoe, an award that goes to the best African in the Beligian first division.
On another note, West ham played Aston Villa on Monday evening in a game that had much more action than the 0-0 scoreline suggests. As always with a game officiated by Mike Dean, almost all the talking points came from his stupidity – Masuaku, who has been on the best form of his career so far at West ham this season, recieved a second yellow for a ‘foul’ on Villa substitute El Mohamady where no contact was made. One of the strangest parts of the sending off was the fact that Var can’t be used for second yellows. From the start of the game, it looked like Mike Dean was out to give a red card, and when the opportunity came there was no way he would turn it down. Other than the sending off, the game was pretty dire but I’ll happily take a point away to villa with 10 men.
On to the game from yesterday, at the time of writing, West Ham vs Man United, incredible to say about a game with one of the greats of English football but this could be one of our easiest victories all season. Man United showed hardly any signs of creating a clear goal and had absolutely dire passing throughout the game. West ham are now 3 wins 1 draw 1 loss in our last 5 against Man United which shows the downfall of Man United in recent years, or the rise of West Ham? Both teams in the first half failed to get a proper grasp on the game and both sides had sub-85% pass completion (78% and 83%) in a scrappy affair where the ball ping-ponged and no team got a real hold of possession but in the 44th minute, Yarmolenko did what Yarmolenko does best and he cut inside onto his left foot and tucked it into the bottom left out of De Gea’s reach. Man United did eventually get two good chances through Maguire and Mata but neither could finish, Eventually with Cresswells second free-kick of the game on his first game back in the side after Masuaku’s one game suspension, we doubled our lead with his absolute peach of a free-kick where De Gea could only get a hand to it. This fixture has produced lots of great moments for West ham in recent years , I’m sure all West ham fans reading will remember the last game at the Boleyn where we won 3-2 and also this fixture last season where we produced one of our best performances of the season in a 3-1 win.
Thank you for reading! Will
Bubbly Football 