Liverpool v. West Ham- Not once, not twice, but thrice?

Who doesn’t love a good cup run?! West Ham face Liverpool at Anfield this Saturday so I thought i’d look at our history with the FA Cup and what we should target in order to beat Liverpool for the third time this season.

Our history with the FA Cup.

Last season’s FA Cup run is definitely one that that we want to forget, but one that we can’t. Although we did get drawn against Everton in the third round, we were playing well having beaten the top sides in the first half of the season. A final result of 2-2 at Upton Park meant that the match went to penalties with Adrian making a brilliant save and scoring the winner in style, taking his gloves off in the run up to his penalty. Unfortunately we ended up getting knocked out in the fifth round after a 4-0 defeat to West Brom. Now when comparing this to most FA Cup run’s we’ve had since we reached the final in 2006, last season was actually pretty good! Since the 2005/2006 season, the Hammers have been knocked out in the third round six times and have only reached the quarter final’s once in that period.

It simply isn’t good enough considering the squads we have had. We can’t ignore that in some of these seasons we were hit with numerous injuries so the manager had no option but to field youngsters to focus on the league. Lets take 2013/14 for example. Sam Allardyce said that the priorities were top-flight survival and we were also due to face Manchester City in the Capital One Cup semi-final so it’s expected that we wouldn’t have gone as far as we would have liked. But this season has to be different. The fans deserve more. Although we are playing one of the biggest teams in the competition, we have played exceptionally well against the big sides in the Premier League this season and have done the double over our opponents on Saturday. Will this year be our year? Hopefully.

Liverpool’s fear of set-pieces.

I watched Norwich v. Liverpool and it was one of the best, if not the best games I have seen in the Premier League this season but it was also one the worst defensive displays I have seen in the Premier League this season. Jurgen Klopp’s love of having his teams gegenpress means that with the Liverpool players being high up the pitch, we can hit them on the break and with Enner Valencia’s lethal finishing coupled with Dimitri Payet’s exquisite movement, the game could be over within seconds.

It’s also common knowledge that Liverpool are horrendous at defending set pieces. This season alone they have conceded EIGHT goals from corners which is two more than any other club. This is something that we have to exploit. Sending as many men as we can forward when it comes to corners and crossing the ball in whenever we get the chance will strike fear into Liverpool’s defenders. Now some might say that this is ‘anti-football’ and yes Klopp might complain about the style of football but if we win the game, who cares?! The injury to our best aerial threat Andy Carroll is no doubt a big blow but in Nikica Jelavic we have a very good replacement for when those balls get knocked in to the box.

Should ‘long ball West Ham’ come back for Saturday’s game?