The Battle for the Best English Keeper Crown

I promised I'd have a game review up and here ya go.  Don't act all surprised! 

Trips to Upton Park are always tricky.  Arsenal are 1-3-1 in the previous last 5 visits there.  And until Hull City this season, the Hammers were the only side to have ever won at Emirates.  And West Ham's hoodoo tends to extend to the other Big 4 clubs.  

So it should be no surprise that today's game was just as hardfought and just as tight and just as pain-in-the-arse as so many other games against the Hammers have been in recent years.  You'd be hardpressed to picture West Ham struggling in mid-table mediocrity from their display today.  Their gameplan -- a basic variant of the "8 defend and 2 sit at midfield waiting for a counter-attack chance" -- worked greatly to stifle the attacking prowess of the Gunners.  Mixed in was the usual "tough guy" tackling that had me fearing for Robin Van Persie on more than one occassion.  The ref did well to keep things from devolving into League Two violence.  

Not that we didn't help.  Theo Walcott hit the crossbar early in the first half.  Van Persie had a beautiful shot go off the far post in the second half.   And Nicklas Bendtner wasted so many chances, I just hope he's not the same way around the ladies.  Or he's gonna go blind quickly.

But the story of the game lied between the two men in between the posts -- West Ham's Robert Green and our own Manuel Almunia, who has recently obtained his British passport.  That opens up the intriguing possibility of Almunia getting called up by Fabio Capello.  Tough to see, I know, but stranger things have happened.  Green, for his part, tends to have the worst luck right around call-up times -- either poor form or injury.

All of that said, the two men put on a display of goalkeeping prowess.  Almunia saved a gilded chance from Craig Bellamy.  Green answered by taking in every bit of the Arsenal pressure in the first half.  The second half provided more work for both men and they rose to every challenge.  Arsenal attacked and attacked and Green had an answer for them.  Almunia saw more and more counter-challenges coming his way and found ways to make sure they came to nothing.  

In the end, it took the luckiest of bounces to break the deadlock.  A pretty harmless shot was put in by West Ham's Julien Faubert.  While you gotta feel for him for that, he didn't follow that with any class as his frustration and anger spoiled over into lousy tackling and shite-talking.  Forced to go for a goal, it was only a matter of time for an opening to appear.  Bendtner's one great move on this day was a long pass that found an open and streaking Adebayor, who got past an on-rushing Green and calmly slotted the ball into the far corner of the net.  2-0 may have been a bit flattering given the poor outcome of so many chances from earlier in the day, but you won't hear me complaining.

So 3 points and firmly esconced in the 4th spot given today's outcomes across the Premier League.  We now got a date against Spurds and the new man in charge, Harry Redknapp.  Here's to 3 points, 5 goals and a nice welcome to the North London derby for Uncle 'Arry!