Positives and Negatives: West Ham 3-2 Fulham

Jack Stroudley looks back at a disappointing evening in East London.

Well, that was bleak. If it wasn’t bad enough having to go to the London Stadium on a Tuesday night, seeing Fulham lose 3-2 and be the latest side to suffer a new manager bounce at the hands of former Chelsea gaffer Graham Potter was the cherry on the cake. Fulham suffered their first defeat since November at the hands of the Irons and their first on the road since October, nevertheless, here are the talking points from a dismal and dreary night in East London.

Positives

I’ll keep this short and sweet, there wasn’t any. Alex Iwobi’s had two crosses that evaded everyone and went in I guess? Fulham were poor, West Ham weren’t much better but punished us in ways I’ll explain in the negatives. Strap in.

Negatives

Sloppiness costs Silva

I don’t want to sit here and slate West Ham too much who capitalised on our mistakes while not playing well themselves, and I guess that’s where we’ll start. All three goals were highly avoidable with two of the three coming as a result of some good press from the West Ham front-line. Andreas Pereira will get criticism for the first for a poor pass but the ball to him from Bernd Leno shouldn’t go unnoticed either, unnecessarily forcing the Brazilian into trouble who has to get rid – unfortunately for him he got rid to a claret and blue shirt.

Like London buses, goals came in pairs for West Ham and after a poor header back from Joachim Andersen, the Irons were in again and after a well worked move, the ball fell to the path of Tomas Soucek in a bizarre and uncharacteristic three minutes for Marco Silva’s side. Just as we got into the game again, Bernd Leno undone that hard work on what was a night to forget for the German. Some good press from West Ham forced him to play it to Lucas Paqueta who restored the hosts lead. On a night where I don’t really think the hosts were spectacular, we made it easy for them. Frustrating.

Devoid of ideas

Fulham had spells of the game where they had the possession we thought we would, but we created little-to-nothing during those spells. Harry Wilson hit the bar early on and the previously mentioned Alex Iwobi crosses ended up in the net, Adama Traore missed a late sitter but other than that Fulham failed to trouble Lukasz Fabianski. Pereira gets a lot of slack from Fulham fans rightly or wrongly and he like most in a white shirt weren’t at it last night, but we need to start having a conversation about Emile Smith Rowe.

Our club record signing wasn’t at it again and to be completely transparent hasn’t been at it for large portions of the season. I know there’s been fitness issues but when a club of our stature is spending that kind of money on a marquee signing, he has to hit the ground running – and for large chunks of the season he’s failed to do so. Yes Fulham scored two, but I don’t think either were intentional and shows the need to spend in the transfer market on another creative player, let’s just hope we can get it done.

Meandering to mid-table

This might and will seem slightly reactionary following our first loss since November, but such is the competitive nature of the Premier League. We’re simply not winning enough games to keep up with the chasing pack for those allusive European spots. Results for Bournemouth and Manchester City leave us four points off seventh (with both Newcastle and Aston Villa given opportunities to extend their gap on us later this week).

If you’d have told me we’d be in ninth at this stage of the season I’d have taken it, but given the context of how our campaign has gone so far and the plethora of nearly moments if we don’t buck up our ideas it will be yet another ‘what could’ve been’ season.