Curbishley left to bemoan form against bottom clubs
Thursday, 19 April 2007
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On the charge sheet of indictments that will be levelled at West Ham at the end of this season will be the offence of how a team can beat Manchester United and Arsenal at home, and the latter away, and lose to Watford, Sheffield United, Wigan Athletic and Charlton Athletic.
There will be no plea of innocence from the manager, Alan Curbishley. " The big games are not the top four teams," he said. "The big games are when you play teams around you. We have come out second best. We have not done enough in those other games." They did not do enough last night either even if Curbishley was right to praise the first-half performance against a Chelsea side who approached the task with a remorseless, relentless belief.
Also on that charge sheet will be the curious case of Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez especially as the former may well be preparing for a European Cup final while the club he left for Liverpool prepares for life in the Championship. Tevez stayed, as much through accident as design, having at least played a few games for the club, and, once more, he was West Ham's best performer last night. He too will leave at the season's end. It's been hard enough for him. Dropping down to English football's second tier would be simply cruel.
Tevez also scored. It was an arresting, joyous strike but such has been his wretched lack of luck this season that the unbridled celebrations also contributed to Chelsea going back down the other end of the pitch and, barely 30 seconds later, taking the lead again. "Virtually every player seems to celebrate it," Curbishley said. "I have asked the question because when Chelsea kicked off they were at it."
West Ham, clearly, were not. Curbishley had put the focus on the Argentine before kick-off by talking about his disappointment with the striker's display in the crushing defeat at Bramall Lane last Saturday. There had been a dressing down in the dressing room.
But the response from Tevez was one brimming with aggressive positivity. His first act was rich in promise and also rarity with John Terry being nimbly robbed on half-way to set up a rapid counter-attack which only petered out when Yossi Benayoun over-hit a cross. That infused a degree of belief. Tevez forced Lassana Diarra into a rash challenge and a booking and then had goalkeeper Petr Cech tipping over his shot.
Curbishley's criticism of him was understandable given his talent but curious in another sense. As disappointing as Tevez has been in his previous two performances, and as persistent as the rumours that he is a difficult character continue to be, he has been a whole-hearted presence in a harrowing season.
Indeed, yesterday the former West Ham striker Tony Cottee said he felt Tevez had been "fantastic for the club this year. I don't think there is a player of the year candidate but if there is one it would be him. He's worked his socks off". Tevez continued to do that.
The encounter also brought him up against the club Kia Joorabchian, the businessman who controls Tevez's economic rights, had at one stage hoped to sell him to. Jose Mourinho had been unimpressed with what he'd found off the field as much as on it in meeting the player and that attempt failed, hastening his eventual, surprising arrival at West Ham, the only club that would take him.
Another game slipped away and, inevitably, Tevez's influence waned. There was a wonderful turn away from Terry, once more, but it served as little more than further proof of a criminal neglect, another entry on that charge sheet.
