On the ‘Footballer’s Football Podcast’ he co-hosts with Michail Antonio, Callum Wilson had vowed to perform the Macarena were he to score here at the London Stadium.
It was hardly good news for West Ham, then, when inside six minutes Newcastle’s number nine was prancing around behind the home goal like a lagered-up uncle at a wedding and not much better when, 30 seconds after the break, he was jiving in front of the away end, as if the shots had been ordered and House Of Fun queued up on the speakers.
Nor is it difficult to see why Wilson would consider this place something of a playground: the striker’s double took his tally to 12 goals in just 13 games against the Hammers and condemned David Moyes’s side to a brutal 5-1 defeat that put swift pay to their hopes of scampering further clear of the drop, all the time consolidating the Magpies’ place in the top-four.
A win would have taken the Irons up to 12th, top of the left-behind-league that has developed between a jumble of relegation candidates. Defeat instead has the cushion to the bottom-three a matter only of goal difference, and, in its manner, confidence that had barely recovered drained yet again. A game in hand can be of little consolation, given it comes away to Manchester City.
Weirdly, given the eventual scoreline, for the best part of 70 minutes this did not feel like a night on which West Ham would fold so tamely. Moyes’s side, from an attacking perspective, played with more belief, urgency and incision than in almost any game this season, but shot themselves with unforgivable defensive mistakes at horrifically inopportune times.
Wilson and Joelinton had the visitors two up in a near-instant and after Kurt Zouma’s header deservedly had West Ham back in the game, Nayef Aguerd’s malfunction in possession gifted Newcastle and Wilson their clincher only moments after the break.
Late on, Lukasz Fabianski trumped that effort with a bizarre charge that left substitute Alexander Isak lifting into an empty net from 30 yards. Joelinton joined Wilson in tucking away a second as the board went up for added time.
The final whistle came with an ambitious rallying call from the stadium announcer, reminding fans to come back tomorrow night to watch the club’s Under-18s in their FA Youth Cup semi-final but it would take a hardy soul to return so soon to the scene of trauma like this, particularly as this was a night that oh-so-briefly promised more.
Forty seconds in, Jarrod Bowen’s bold run from inside his own half seemingly set the tone for a performance full of the aggression that had been so missing in the scrape past Southampton on Sunday. When the winger’s low cross was toed towards his own goal and back off the post by Bruno Guimaraes the home crowd sensed, despite the lack of fortune, that this might be different, too.
Michail Antonio, preferred up front to Danny Ings, was direct, Said Benrahma likewise, with one driving burst to force a corner. With Newcastle under the pump and caught out by the fast start, though, the Irons declined to swing the ball into the box and the short set-piece was easily cleared. Then, Thilo Kehrer gifted a needless corner at the other end and, quicker than the revolving door of the Chelsea manager’s office (Moyes must hope his remains jammed shut) the momentum swung.
In a duel between two of the division’s purest footballers, Allan Saint-Maximin breezed past Benrahma and found Wilson, unmarked as West Ham’s centre-backs pushed out and left the danger behind, to nod home.
What a start to the second half 😲
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) April 5, 2023
TWO for Callum Wilson ✅✅ pic.twitter.com/Oj5GutMXQ4
Seven minutes later, they were nowhere again as Joelinton rounded Fabianski to make it two, VAR pinpointing Emerson Palmieri as the guilty man to have blown the offside ruse.
The home side were briefly shellshocked, the stadium - save a pocket of Geordie travellers - silenced, but West Ham just about hung in and, somewhat unexpectedly, began to reassert.
Lucas Paqueta, who had scored the leveller at St. James’s Park earlier this season, almost deceived Nick Pope with a low free-kick, before Sven Botman’s sensational tackle was needed to thwart Antonio.
Pope, whose performances have taken a bizarre deviation from his trademark solid-as-they-come in recent months, then came and flapped at Bowen’s corner, complaining afterwards about a non-existent Antonio foul, as Zouma rose best of all to power in.
As such, when the half-time whistle blew, there were no boos, nor even groans of apathy, as West Ham supporters made for the bars and bogs with reasonable conviction in the prospect of a completed comeback. Before many had returned to their seats, those hopes were dashed.
