A very sodden Selhurst Park saw West Ham start with the same XI that began the home defeat to Aston Villa.
A sparkling start from the Irons saw Soucek head just wide from the first corner of the game.
Then after 15 minutes we really should have taken the lead when the busy Soucek set up Kudus, only for him to send his shot just wide of the left handed post.
A minute later, however, when Eze got into space behind Coufal and was in on goal. Areola came out, narrowed the angle and makes a superb save with his left foot. The best chance of the game.
As the first half progressed Palace’s high press was starting to hem West Ham in, and Palace were beginning to look more and more threatening.
Indeed, just before half time Eze curled a first-time shot that bounced down off the underside of the crossbar.
The Irons went into half time 0-0 ..just!
In that first half, we had actually had more attempts than Palace, nine to eight, but not one of them forced a save from Dean Henderson.
The second have kicked off with both sides making no changes.
There was a chance ten minutes after the restart, when from a corner Coufal had a chance to score his first goal for the club, but he shanked it in a spectacular fashion.
On the hour the relatively anonymous Antonio was hooked in favour of Niclas Fullkrug and AWB came on for his debut for Vladamir Coufal.
Wan-Bissaka was immediately in the thick of it. He started a counter attack from inside his own half, passed to Bowen, who then set up Paqueta whose shot was blocked and Soucek was there to side foot home. 1-0
Soucek now has 28 Premier goals, which puts him ninth in the all-time list, just behind Freddie Kanoute.
No sooner as we got our breath back, our new captain Jarrod Bowen made it 2-0 with a lovely goal set up by the peerless Max Killman who won the ball from Eze, brought it past Wharton, and slid a superbly weighted ball to Bowen in space on the right. Bowen stepped inside and fired a shot past Henderson!
Oddly enough after not troubling the Palace goalkeeper with our first 13 goal attempts, the next two attempts ended up in the Palace net!
With 10 minutes to go , our goal scoring Soucek went off for the returning Alvarez and then in an attempt to use up the remaining minutes, Cresswell came on for his 350th appearance for Emerson.
After scoring the goal , the Irons bossed it. Not getting ahead of myself, I think things are beginning to gel!
We won so the boss called it right. We can bring on real strength from the bench now is a big difference. I was quietly confident today as Palace are not the team that finished last season. Onwards and upwards…
Well that was worth staying up for.
Was a bit surprised at seeing the same starting line up as last week, but how good did that feel seeing how strong our bench is?
Subs made the difference for me.
Probably nothing, just me having a whinge, but it seems like presenters are less than enthused about West Ham. Ian Wright sounded almost disappointed that we won the game.
Which is exactly what I wished for 😉