Cottagers Winning Run Ended By Hammers

Graham Potter may not have had the immediate “new manager bounce” at West Ham United but he certainly made up for it in his first league game in charge at home to Fulham by beating them 3-2 on Tuesday night.

Emerson Palmieri, Guido Rodríguez and Carlos Soler were restored to the starting line-up in place of youngster Oliver Scarles, along with the injured duo of Crysencio Summerville and Niclas Füllkrug.

It was a very youthful looking bench too, as Luis Guilherme, Kaelan Casey and Lewis Orford were some of the options available to the new Head-Coach.

A large home crowd had packed into their seats to welcome the former Swansea City, Brighton and Hove Albion and Chelsea boss to East London and the atmosphere got better throughout the game. Although it has to be said that matters on the pitch didn’t start well. As early as the third minute, Harry Wilson hit the crossbar when he received possession from Alex Iwobi’s cross. Minutes later, the Welshman then sent a shot wide from 22-yards.

Wilson was at the centre of the action again when he played in Emile Smith Rowe but the former Arsenal youngster had his attempt expertly blocked by the head of Max Kilman.

Fulham had beaten the Hammers twice last season and already had a 1-1 draw against them this term. They continued to dominate proceedings in the early stages here, as Smith Rowe, Raúl Jiménez and Antonee all had good chances but were unable to convert them.

A pleasing aspect from a West Ham point of view though was that Potter had clearly been working on his team’s ball retention in the little time that he he’s had to work with his new squad.

The Irons had clearly worked on a gameplan for Marco Silva’s men and once they had established some momentum, they executed it to perfection. They thought they had gone in front on twenty four minutes but the effort from Kilman was unfortunately ruled out for offside by VAR.

The hosts’ intensity showed no sign of dropping and the crowd only had to wait another five minutes for their team to open the scoring. Edson Álvarez forced Andreas Pereira into a mistake and the ball fell kindly for Soler, who smashed it into the unguarded net to claim his first goal for the club.

The majority inside the stadium were in raptures again just two minutes later, as West Ham won possession and the ball dropped into the path of Mohammed Kudus. It looked as if the winger would shoot himself but instead, he played the ball out to Soler, whose cross was then met by Aaron Wan-Bissaka who in turn sent it in the direction of stand-in Captain Tomáš Souček and he then beat visiting goalkeeper Bernd Leno with a near post effort.

Fulham would have found a route back into the game but they were denied by the woodwork again and when referee Craig Pawson blew the half-time whistle, the home fans were grateful to have been treated to the sort of performance they had been waiting for in a long time.

After Potter had delivered only his second half-time team talk to his players, he would have been disappointed to have seen the advantage halved. Łukasz Fabiański was distracted by the run from Jiménez, allowing a cross from Iwobi to bounce beyond him.

With sixty three minutes gone, the crowd were bemused when Potter made his first change, as he sent on Danny Ings in place of Kudus.

It turned out to be a good move however, as within four minutes of his introduction, he put visiting goalkeeper Bernd Leno under pressure and the striker was able to present Lucas Paquetá with the easiest of finishes past the German stopper.

With eighteen minutes of normal time to play, Potter again turned to his bench and sent on Andrew Irving for Soler.

To their credit, Fulham scored again, as another cross from Iwobi went past Fabiański without anyone applying a touch.

The East Londoners made a double change on eighty one minutes, as Scarles, along with Aaron Cresswell came on for both Palmieri and Rodríguez.

The Cottagers were trying hard to claim an equaliser but nothing was coming off for them.

Six minutes of stoppage time had been added and deep into that allotted period, Paquetá had a chance to add a fourth but didn’t get the attempt on target.

Nevertheless, the Hammers were able to finally celebrate a hard-fought win. They will now need to follow this performance when Crystal Palace arrive here on Saturday afternoon.