West Ham recorded their first Championship win of the season last night, a much-needed 4–2 victory against a Wolves team plenty of pundits have already crowned as title contenders. I could sense the relief rolling off the supporters sitting around me. But then came the line that stopped me dead: “That was the worst win I’ve ever seen.”
It took a second to process, because for me the night was lit up by two outrageous finishes from Divine Mukasa and a handful of genuinely encouraging individual performances.
Mukasa Changes The Game
The real gripe, though, was obvious: thirty-plus minutes without a single shot, on or off target. After last weekend’s one lonely shot on target against Watford, that’s not a stat anyone wants to revisit. Mukasa’s opener came completely against the run of play, but once it went in, the whole dynamic flipped. We ended with six shots on target to Wolves’ three and an xG of 1.77.
Wolves hogged 57% possession, but that’s hardly shocking. West Ham basically invited pressure, and conceded a second, five minutes after making it four. Classic Nuno game-management, stressful, and not for the faint-hearted.
Divine Mukasa was the difference for West Ham
Still, Wolves will be one of the stronger sides in this division, so this felt bigger than just three points. It’s a morale booster, and with the Premier League and EFL window now shut, Nuno can finally focus on settling the two players still being linked with moves abroad — thanks to Turkey and Saudi dragging their windows out. With no chance of bringing in reinforcements, the club needs to take a firm stance. Keeping both Magassa and Álvarez will feel like signing two new players, you never know they may enjoy it, with an opportunity to win some silverware this season!
Nuno Has Options Across The Squad
Squad-wise, Nuno has cover across the pitch and will have to rotate heavily with the fixture pile-up looming. If Cornet stays, someone may also want to remind him that he can also play left-back, which gives him three options now following the loan signing of Adama Boiro!
My only lingering concern, shared by plenty, is the negativity baked into his tactics. Sitting deep and surrendering territory is a disaster waiting to happen, we saw it for much of last season, and we already saw it at Turf Moor when a 2–0 lead evaporated into a single point.
For now, though, I’m celebrating the win. Eyes forward. Derby County visit the London Stadium on Saturday for the first time, and the momentum is finally rolling – I hope!
A win is a win which is great. But I feel we are always going to do better against teams that are prepared to attack us. I don’t think that will be many sides. Many will play low block style football which we will find difficult to break down.
After all of that, what is happenning with Jamie Vardy? Is he staying or going?
I agree with your assessment and also most of the comments. Some of the players looked as if they had half a mind on the transfer window, some were trying too hard, the passing was not great, but I thought that Wolves pressed and harried the team for most of the game. Defensive mistake cost us the first goal, and Dino was unlucky, we need a leader in that department. I still believe that we are 2-3 games from seeing the team gel properly. But I will take the win.
According to a certain ex Hammers manager, performance isn’t important, only winning, no matter how achieved.
He then cited, 28 wins as a requirement (84 points) plus say, ten draws, should take you close to automatic promotion. That would allow for circa, 8 defeats.
Personally, whilst I don’t question the forecast of wins required, I disagree with the statement of performance not being important.
Nuno is not the best, nor worst manager that we’ve had. But he doesn’t set his team up to dominate the entire match, or at least try to!
Conversely, I have seen many worse wins than last night.
Several times during BFS’ tenure spring to mind ( remember him cupping his ear being booed off ) having won at the Boleyn Ground.
We now need to give the assembled squad time to settle in ( 9 new), find a rhythm and better tempo that delivers entertaining football and the required winning ratio.
Is it possible that currently retaining Alvarez, Souceck, Maggassa combined with Orford, Mukasa, Kante and Engels that Hammers have enough quality to play with more expression and personality through the thirds?
We have five wingers (inc Cornet)
Three centre forwards, four including Ajala.
Do we have enough now, to go on a winning streak, whilst entertaining until the January transfer window?
Much better but conceded far to easily.
Going forward looked like we were going to score on every attack.They are starting to play together very well. The only thing I would like to say to Gerrard Bowen is, use the players more around you, you often lose the ball trying too hard to score yourself, you have players now who can help you more, so use them
Looking good and can now only get better
I think we need to get behind the team and the manager more Matt. I get the concerns about the negative tactics but equally I would point to the team yesterday when we started with 5 attack minded players on the pitch. We also need to stay a bit patient in the near term. There have been alot of changes to the squad late in the window and it will take time for everything to click. Wolves are one of the best teams in the league so we should rightly be encouraged by the 3 points.
We won the game. Who cares how. Let’s just enjoy it. Remember when we was kids and we just played football for fun, jumpers for goalposts and all that and when we won we didn’t know how but we just enjoyed it. Let’s enjoy it and move on.
Great article, very balanced. I am not convinced with Nuno’s setup at all, but wishing to halt my own negativity for 5 mins and just enjoy a win at last! Keeping the positivity going, lets hope this is a spark toward better results in the future.
Despite all my grumblings, I really don’t want to see Nuno (or anyone for that matter) fail.
COYI
Worst win is a bit harsh! First half an hour offered little and we could’ve conceded twice, but there was a difference after we went ahead. Yes we conceded, but that was probably more nerves of players rather than tactics, as it was far too early to sit back! Thought Nuno made positive substitutions to try and sustain the attack and press. Threw the new kid straight into it, which a certain Mr Moyes would not have done! I’m not convinced Nuno is the right man for the job, but if he’s listening to fans and making subtle changes bit by bit, with the performances and scores improving, I can get behind him. Squad is looking pretty decent for championship now, so lets hope everyone stays fit (which Nuno has a good record for) and we can start winning regularly! COYI!
This , although winning three points against the other joint favourites for promotion, was not a great performance. If these two teams are the favourites to win promotion, I hate to think about the quality of the rest of the teams in this division. We had one great finish & a piece of deserved luck with Mukasa’s goals, a somewhat fortunate penalty & a well taken goal from Mavropanos. The only players from West Ham who I thought had good games were
Mukasa & Felipe. Kilman was “steady”, Solomon & Piroe & Engels were ineffectual & the team gave the ball away & misplaced passes far too frequently. Fortunately, Wolves were just as bad – if not worse. If we had been playing a Premier League side, we would have lost. Luckily, this is the Championship & we weren’t. We have to get much better than this. Maybe this was a start in achieving this.