Spirited Hammers beaten but deserved much better

By Hugh Southon

Liverpool 2 Hammers 1

They deserved more!

This new gritty and determined West Ham made it really tough for the champions, taking the lead through Pablo Fornals – a goal to go with the one he scored at Anfield last season – before  ultimately being beaten by a Salah spot kick and late Diogo goal.

Arthur Masuaku should not become a hate figure for giving away the first half penalty via a clumsy tackle as he actually had a pretty good game beyond that causing Liverpool some real moments of concern.

The thing about this new West Ham is that such is their effort and at times very good football you can’t feel too upset when they get beaten by a team such as this because they gave everything they had and definitely deserved a point in my book.

Typifying that was Fornals who made really good runs and showed real energy whilst the defence is an entirely different kettle of fish – tight and composed – to the one Moyes inherited.

They restricted Liverpool to four or five chances, making sure their strikers had as hard a time breaking them down as they will any team this season.

Coufal was outstanding and Oggy was again at his best but it was in midfield where we looked really strong with Rice,  Soucek and Fornals outstanding .

Sadly Seb Haller – in for the injured Mikey Antonio – was pretty anonymous only catching my eye on ONE occasion when holding off three or four Reds defenders.

Benrahma made a very late appearance but barely got a touch as the game drifted to it’s predictable conclusion after the second goal.

The Hammers will play worse than this and win – they were quite Liverpool’s equal over the 90 minutes and we look forward with optimism.