Finally- after almost 100 agonising minutes West Ham were awarded the win and the three points they thoroughly deserved tonight after a stellar away performance at Craven Cottage.
West Ham’s long ball game came to nothing in the first half as Callum Wilson partnered Taty Castellanos up front. Clearly Nuno’s tactic was to reach the duo directly – but the Hammers pairing were left chasing the ball for large parts of the half as Fulham won just about every knock down.
Nuno changed early in the second half and switched to three up front with pretty rapid effect: The Hammers took the lead mid way through the second half after some immense pressing from their hardworking skipper created the error.
Crysencio Summerville is absolutely on fire. Pouncing on Leno’s error created by Bowen’s pressing, Summerville still had much to do and his football – both in beating defenders with his little shimmy and the final finish – in scoring West Ham’s first was sublime.
VAR – The highs and lows of the video referral system were perfectly displayed tonight. “In any other game that’s a penalty” Said Chris Coleman – former Fulham player and manager, remember, in an honest assessment of the officials’ absolute howling mistake live on TNT. Not awarding West Ham a first half penalty for Iwobi’s clear hand ball was utterly perplexing.
Fair enough for the referee to miss it but – the more times you see it , the clearer it is. Utterly terrible. Decisions like that could cost West Ham their Premier League status. And talking of terrible – the referee’s decision to award a penalty against Castellanos in the second half was, fortunately, hastily overturned by the technology. The inconsistency of decision making in so – called elite sport is just staggering.
Mads Hermansen looks to have cemented his place in the side: Five saves in total and his brilliant 87th minute low left hand save looked to have saved three points for Nuno’s side. The Hammers hoodoo from corners seems to have been fixed – for now. Solidity looks to have been restored along with a determination to jump and compete for everything.
Jean Clair Todibo, from open play as well as set pieces, did well and looked immense in his first game back after his Chelsea red card. Huge pressure would have been on him, being chosen by Nuno ahead of Mavropanos, but the defender looked on it from the first minute. Good call from Nuno.
And that ten minutes of added time – agonising. West Ham now level on points with Nottinghamm Forest who grabbed a point at Manchester City. Drama overload tonight.
You can see how Fulham get their results, although it didn’t come off last night, the vast amount of Sxxxhousery that they perform in off the ball incidents was quite remarkable. The persistent and blatant obstruction and sly arm tugging of off the ball movement puts the opposition out of their stride. Thats not to say that they are a poor side, but if you can continue to knock confidence and frustrate the opposition without being caught out it’s eventually going to turn a match around in your favour. I don’t like it but there are plenty of effective teams that do it, maybe we should start being a bit more clever off the ball too. Anyway, fortunately it didn’t pay off for them last night and our inner belief got us over the line. You certainly couldn’t say that about us even at the turn of the new year. Well done
Hmm. Thank God for VAR. wow was that me not criticising VAR. oh well. So be it.
Despite the referees best efforts to rob us of the game we thoroughly deserved to win that. The boys are fighting for it it’s plain to see. In the end the luck went our way and as I said it was fully deserved. Onwards and upwards. I am starting to dream we stay up and please let it be Tottenham that goes down instead.
West Ham have lost just two games (Chelsea, Liverpool) out of the last ten in all comps. Not exactly relegation form is it? Fingers crossed!
Stellar performance ??. What game were you watching
Ref awful , thought he was going to 2nd yellow to fernandes for what was a foul on fernandes. I don’t understand the rules as the vary from game to game. Brilliant 3 points.
Huge 3 points puts morale and momentum sky high Plus huge pressure on the sides around us
Well done to the players under extremely difficult situation. We may have won but you have to look at the referee and some of the onesided decisions against us and not given against Fulham. 3 things stand out for me, we should have had a penalty for handball and then the referee trys to give a penalty to Fulham for a Fulham player kicking a West Ham player. Also Fernandos gets booked for a foul when Fulham trying to break, but Fulham did it several times during the match with no bookings even when a free kick was given. Just shows how poor or bias some of the officials are.
This is just not Callum Wilson’s style of play. Excellent result tonight but next game we need to start with the A team up front. In the absence of Pablo, we need a crazy Adama Traore up there causing mayhem in the middle.
Both Wilson and Traore are woeful.
It was nobody’s game in the first half. Just hoofing the ball up the pitch, but if a shank over the bar and failing to connect with a sublime cross from Summerville, are the best Wilson’s got, then I’d rather see an under 18 play.
As for Traore, the least said the better.
Thankfully played against a misfiring Fulham otherwise we would have been toast.
Nice to see an attacking 4-2-4 but absolutely perfect timing when switching to 4-3-3 because Fernandes was getting desperate and needed help. Commentator mentioned this would free him up as well and he was right.
Well played Magassa! He really helped get the team over the line. Plus he played some good forward passes coming out from defence – great to see him progressing.
Wilson looked slow and not that willing, awful match.