It was very much a day of unwanted firsts, the first goal we have conceded away this season, the first defeat this season and of course the first time Steve Cotterill has tasted defeat as 
But it’s not all doom and gloom, and despite the fact that we were supposedly set to be lambs for the slaughter against the big club, we could so easily have come home with a better result.
The pre-match discussion suggested this was going to be a difficult afternoon for us against one of the pre-season promotion favourites but sometimes we do pay too much attention to the team sheets and the environment.
Yes they do have a string of well known names with top level experience including the class act Teddy Sheringham up front and yes they do have one of the bigger grounds in the division that makes them grander than they actually are.
We kicked off with the home side attacking the end where the
We were out passing the home side and were well on top and with any luck at all would have been in front. Mind you, with referee Robinson a goal would probably not have been allowed, it did look as though he might have put this one down for a home win on his coupon.
The midfield were in control and put some excellent moves together but the goal would just not come. Ian Moore got through twice, Robbie Blake was unlucky with one effort from a free kick and perhaps could have done better with another shot, and even Tony Grant stormed up to have a shot at goal.
Little was seen of West Ham with Michael Duff and Mo Camara snuffing out the supposed danger from their two wide men Luke Chadwick and Matthew Etherington and Frank Sinclair and John McGreal handling anything that came down the middle.
Somehow I had expected Chadwick to have a stormer against us, after all it is the period when he is usually on heat, but he turned in one of those performances that left us delighted we only ever had him on loan and we could let him go back.
It was becoming an enjoyable afternoon, we were controlling the game against one of the promotion favourites, certainly never looked like conceding a goal and looked as though we could certainly get one ourselves.
But we didn’t, although both Chappy and Micah Hyde came desperately close as half time approached, and by the whistle we might have been well ahead on points. It was still goalless though with West Ham virtually restricted to a couple of long range shots that Danny Coyne dealt with comfortably.
Steve Cotterill had said during the week that he was going to put a video together to show the players just how well they had been playing. I hope he has left space on the tape to include some of this because it more than deserves to be there.
The second half got underway and West Ham were certainly doing more attacking but for the first ten minutes or so they didn’t trouble us and we still were looking the more dangerous side.
Then came a spell of about five minutes when for the first time they started to put us under some real pressure. They were getting balls into our box and we were struggling to clear and struggling to get a foot on the ball.
West Ham boss Alan Pardew replaced Chadwick, it was somewhat surprising he had stayed on for an hour, with the returning Steve Lomas and within two minutes we were behind.
Coyne made one excellent double save at the expense of a corner which was headed down for former Blackpool player Adam Nowland to hit home his first goal for West Ham with a shot from the edge of the box.
Cotterill immediately changed things, switching to 4-4-2 with Mooro and Branchy going up front but that left us without any width except from the full backs who to their credit both responded with some excellent attacking play.
West Ham’s defence comes in for criticism at times but they played well and handled the new strike pair without any major alarms and as the clock ticked down you sensed we weren’t going to get back into it.
Another home goal was probably always more likely but we gave it everything we had but struggled to test Bywater in the home goal.
It all ended in a shambles with one player sent off, another wondering how on earth he wasn’t and the incompetent and homer Robinson having totally lost the plot.
McGreal won the ball from Harewood, no surprise Harewood hadn’t won a ball all afternoon, and frustration got the better of the former
Sadly this prompted all hell to break loose and three players – Michael Duff, Rufus Brevett and Anton Ferdinand took things too far. Needless to say Robinson let off the already carded Brevett but waved his yellow card at the other two. Worse still he failed to send off Harewood who also received a yellow card.
That was in the last minute of normal time but the referee and his assistant must have spent at least five minutes sorting it out before getting it horribly wrong.
But if Harewood deserved to go Chris Cohen certainly did a few minutes later (we played eight minutes of stoppage time) for a disgraceful challenge on Tony Grant. He’d been on the pitch since just before the melee and he’ll now serve a three match ban. It was awful and a dreadful end to the match.
A defeat it was and after the second half showing it would be wrong to suggest we deserved to win it, but after that first half showing we definitely didn’t deserve to lose it. The problem again is the lack of players, the inability to change things, the lack of a Plan B, and that really does need to be addressed and addressed quickly.
But there will have been no
Michael Duff has been singled out by the manager, I wonder just how on earth no one had taken a chance on him before after seeing the way he has started this season. I’ll single out my man of the match, John McGreal.
He had one of the most difficult tasks of the afternoon in having to cope with the impressive Teddy Sheringham but he did it and did it superbly.
I still cannot quite work out why there was the constant booing aimed at Sheringham from the Burnley fans but there again they did the same to Chadwick and tried taunting the home fans with chants of, ‘Premiership, you’re having a laugh’. Strange that, I thought they had been relegated fifteen months ago.
A defeat, but a game we could so easily have got something out of and a performance that suggests there will be a lot more good days than bad days this season.
All that was left was a nightmare journey home after an accident on the M1 near Milton Keynes caused long delays for the returning Clarets – some missing last orders as they came back into
The teams were,
West Ham: Stephen Bywater, Tomas Repka, Anton Ferdinand, Hayden Mullins, Rufus Brevett, Luke Chadwick (Steve Lomas 59), Nigel Reo-Coker, Adam Nowland, Matthew Etherington, Teddy Sheringham (Chris Cohen 86), Marlon Harewood. Subs not used: James Walker, Sergei Rebrov, Trent McClenahan.
Burnley: Danny Coyne, Michael Duff, Frank Sinclair, John McGreal, Mo Camara, Ian Moore, Richard Chaplow, Tony Grant, Micah Hyde, Graham Branch (Lee Roche 90), Robbie Blake. Subs not used: Brian Jensen, Matt O’Neill, Joel Pilkington, Ryan Townsend.
Referee: Paul Robinson (
Attendance: 22,119.