West Ham supporters have four-word message for Iliman Ndiaye as Everton boss left amused

They appreciate the game being played in the right way at West Ham United, a club who call themselves ‘The Academy of Football’. And while many Irons fans were frustrated with their own team’s display in this stalemate, it seems that one of the Everton line-up caught their eye.

West Ham Central, the Hammers’ largest independent news/fans page on X with over 118,000 followers posted this simple four-word message: “Ndiaye is a baller.”

Enough said in that respect as yet another set of supporters get the chance to see the Blues’ magic man up close for the first time in a week when even Sam Allardyce acknowledged he’d caught his eye this season.

READ MORE: National media spot what Jordan Pickford did at full-time as they react to Everton draw at West Ham

READ MORE: West Ham boss Julen Lopetegui namechecks Everton player as he makes win claim

With his own specially-created chant, the Senegal international has of course already become a big favourite with Evertonians who follow the team home and away, and Ndiaye displayed that special bond here when he went over to acknowledge a group of travelling Blues supporters for their efforts and posed for a photograph.

Under fire managers share a joke

When Everton went to West Ham United in January 2023, the game was cynically dubbed ‘El Sackio’, with both David Moyes and Frank Lampard’s positions under threat. As it turned out, the former Blues boss, then in charge of the Irons, got one over on the ex-Iron, as the hosts triumphed 2-0 through a Jarrod Bowen brace and Lampard was duly dismissed despite owner Farhad Moshiri, attending a match under his tenure for the only time, claiming “it’s not my decision” when collared in the car park within the bowels of the London Stadium.

Following another home win, 3-1 (there have only been three for West Ham in the last 19 when Everton have visited) on the final day of the 2017/18 season, both Moyes and Allardyce (curiously another boss facing a previous employer) found themselves out of a job. Things weren’t quite so desperate here but both Julen Lopetegui and Sean Dyche found themselves feeling the heat before kick-off after disappointing results the previous weekend.

There had been talk that the Spaniard may well have been relieved of his duties had the Blues triumphed against his side but with owner David Sullivan watching on, wearing his Russian fur hat, Dyche in particular seemed to be tickled by something as he warmly greeted Lopetegui. It’s not clear what his opposite number said to him but for a couple of moments at least before kick-off, the Everton manager looked to be roaring with a big smile on his face.

Tarkowski’s change of tactic

Perhaps it was because he had Everton’s most valuable player Jarrad Branthwaite back alongside him as his centre-back partner and he felt less inclined to adopt his usual ‘enforcer’ role, but captain James Tarkowski showed a bit of silk to accompany the steel in his game. After this corresponding fixture last season, Dyche described the pair of them as being “immense” but with his imposing colleague having been missing from the starting line-up for most of this term, Tarkowski has found himself making a series of rash challenges.

As Everton’s official statistician Gavin Buckland has pointed out on the ECHO’s Royal Blue podcast, for one reason or another, the Mancunian stopper has typically been producing one moment in every game of late in which he’s made a dramatic gesture to show “he’s the hardest man on the pitch.” While Tarkowski has sometimes got away with a clutch of eye-watering challenges where he’s ‘left a bit in’, he got caught in the act by VAR when wrestling Newcastle United’s Sandro Tonali to the ground and had to rely on Jordan Pickford winning the battle of nerves with Anthony Gordon from the penalty spot.

There is a smattering of subtlety to Tarkowski’s game though and from time to time he catches opponents out with little pieces of ‘tekkers’ when they don’t expect it. Here, Bowen was his victim as got Everton out of trouble in a dangerous situation with an inspired drop of the shoulder that wide men Ndiaye and Jesper Lindstrom would have been proud of, to outfox the home skipper and send him the wrong way.