107 minutes it took for the final whistle to be blown. [West Ham’s](https://www.claretandhugh.info/west-ham-v-nottingham-forest-claret-and-hugh-predict/) last home game of the season descended into bad tempered chaos as the yellow card was flourished again and again – I lost count: Hammers players finally – _finally_ you understand after about 75 minutes of limp acquiescence – got some spirit.
Where was that spirit in the first 75 minutes? The truth seemed clear. If Potter had started with the team that was on the pitch for the last fifteen minutes of normal time then the fans might have felt they’d had value for money. And West Ham might have won.
As it was, West Ham were lethargic, slow, lazy, ponderous cautious– choose the words yourself, the game was on Sky for all to see in its glory.
The Hammers played the first seventy five minutes like they had a nine-nil cushion from a non-existent first leg. Nobody cared.
Until Jarrod Bowen produced a true ‘worldie’ to bring the home side back into the game, West Ham were an apathetic shadow of a home side fighting for points. Even the manager couldn’t raise himself enough to change the side against a pacy, aggressive Forest side who ran rings round the Irons in the first half.
I have made it a rule not to write these reports whilst I’m angry – but this week I don’t care. Dreadful . Why it took 20 minutes into the second half to change it: I’ll never understand. Potter picked a negative dull dreary side who produced rubbish football. It should have been changed at half time.
There was a positive – which I’ll share later but for now – I’m glad I didn’t go to London Stadium for THAT. Hopefully they cancel the player ‘walk around’ – it’ll be an empty stadium which is a fitting footnote to a terrible season I would like to forget.