sport news West Ham 2-0 Everton: Jarrod Bowen scores twice in the first half to hand David ... trends now
It was five minutes after half time when the West Ham fans in the lower tier of the Sir Trevor Brooking Stand felt safe enough to turn to the Everton supporters in the next section of the London Stadium and serenade them. ‘You’re going to cry in a minute,’ they sang. The Everton fans stared back at them blankly, desultorily. Cry? And the rest. Cry and scream and howl and curse and grieve for what is happening at their club and what may yet be to come.
What Everton would give to be the kind of ‘happy flowers club’ that Pep Guardiola called Manchester City so disparagingly last week. Everton do not have a single happy flower, not a single splash of colour. Dragged deeper into trouble by this 2-0 defeat to their relegation rivals, stuck firmly in the bottom three, they are a grand old team choked by thistles and nestles, lost in the undergrowth of their self-loathing.
They deserved nothing out of this game and they got nothing. At the end of a match dubbed El Sackico because both managers’ jobs were in jeopardy, it is to be hoped that the result spares David Moyes the axe at West Ham because he is a fine manager who has done a good job and who will oversee a recovery if he is allowed to remain.
Jarrod Bowen opened the scoring on 34 minutes in a tense encounter in east London with Everton
Bowen then grabbed his second of the match seven minutes later to make it 2-0 at the London Stadium
Bowen's goals ensured that the Hammers recorded back to back home wins over Everton for the first time since 1986
Both managers came into the game under heavy pressure but it's Frank Lampard's side who lost once again
But the defeat will almost certainly spell the end for the Everton manager, Frank Lampard. This was the unhappiest of returns to the club where he began his playing career. He has now presided over 11 defeats in his last 14 matches and although the underlying problems at the club are not his fault, his position is seen as untenable.
It was a sign of the dysfunction that has overwhelmed Everton that the members of their board can attend a match in London without fears for their safety but have been warned the dangers are too great for them to watch their club at Goodison Park. It was another sign of their dysfunction that when their owner, Farhad Moshiri, took his place in the directors’ box this afternoon, it was the first time he had seen Everton play live since October 2021.
The suspicion was that he had only come so that he could sack Lampard in person, although he, chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale and non-executive director Graeme Sharp, all targets of the fans’ ire, had departed ten minutes before the end. Only Bill Kenwright, the chairman who loves the club to his core but has been vilified more than anyone, remained in his seat watching another grim setback unfold in front of him.
The outlook for Everton is bleak. Their next two games are at home to league leaders Arsenal and away to Merseyside rivals Liverpool, hardly the ideal introduction for the new manager. And whoever takes over will find
