West Ham Go To Elland Back

For a number of years now, West Ham United have only lost once to a newly-promoted team but on Friday night, they extended that tally to two, by virtue of a 2-1 defeat to last season’s Sky Bet Championship title winners Leeds United at Elland Road.

Nuno Espírito Santo made two changes from the match against Keith Andrews’ side earlier this week, as both Aaron Wan-Bissaka and El Hadji Malick Diouf were restored to the starting line-up in place of Kyle Walker-Peters and Mateus Fernandes who dropped to the bench.

Youngsters Freddie Potts and Callum Marshall were once again amongst the substitutes.

The performance put in during Monday night’s defeat was extremely bad and the Hammers were determined to try and put on a better showing to appease those who had made the long journey from East London to West Yorkshire. However, that plan went out the window within three minutes when Brenden Aaronson scored. Jayden Bogle’s cross was met by Noah Okafor and although visiting goalkeeper Alphonse Areola made the save, the Frenchman was helpless to prevent the ball from crossing the line as the American was in the right place to reach the rebound.

The Hammers might have atoned for that setback seven minutes later, as captain Jarrod Bowen picked up the pieces and tested home goalkeeper Lucas Perri after the danger wasn’t properly cleared, following a cross from Crysencio Summerville who was making his first return to his former club. The Brazilian stopper couldn’t hold the initial effort but unfortunately, he grabbed the ball at the second attempt which prevented his compatriot Lucas Paquetá from beating him on the follow-up.

It was to get worse for the Irons just five minutes later when one of their familiar failings was to haunt them once again!!!

Daniel Farke’s side were awarded a corner and the set-piece evaded both Jean-Clair Todibo and Max Kilman when it was sent into the box. This afforded former Swansea City and Tottenham Hotspur defender Joe Rodon the time and space to be able to head past Areola and give the Irons a mountain to climb.

Minutes later, Espírito Santo made his first change, as youngster Oliver Scarles fell awkwardly and appeared to be in considerable pain, so the Head-Coach opted for a change of formation and sent on Callum Wilson in his place. There were suggestions by the Sky Sports commentators that the defender was going to be replaced anyway. It is believed that Scarles has dislocated his shoulder.

Events really weren’t going the way of the East Londoners here. They thought they had reduced the deficit on thirty four minutes, when Paquetá smashed the ball past Perri but unfortunately, the joy of the travelling support was short lived, as the linesman raised his flag. He spotted that the ball had hit Wilson before falling invitingly for the midfielder. The VAR officials agreed after a lengthy check.

There were then chances at either end of the pitch but both were wasted, before the game was stopped again when the home side suffered an injury blow. On forty four minutes. Gabriel Gudmundsson had to go off after lengthy treatment and was replaced by James Justin.

Due to all the stoppages in play, thirteen minutes of stoppage time were added to the end of the half, during which more opportunities were spurned. The away fans breathed a collective sigh of relief, as Okafor missed the target for the hosts, while Areola was equal to Bogle’s effort up the other end.

They then saw Tomáš Souček pass up a golden opportunity to pull a goal back when he headed the skipper’s cross wide.

The ever-loyal West Ham fan base has become accustomed to booing their team off since the start of the 2024/25 campaign and it was the same here when referee Stuart Attwell finally blew the half-time whistle.

Going into this game, the hosts were without a victory since September 20 and what was even more worrying for the East Londoners was the fact that their opponents had not tasted success here since the 1-0 opening day win over Everton.

Matters improved for Espírito Santo’s team in the second-half, the only problem was that no matter how much pressure was applied, they were unable to find the right formula to break the home side’s resilience.

That being said, Aaronsen almost replicated what he had managed to do in the opening stages of the match but fortunately, a combination of Max Kilman and the crossbar prevented lightning from striking twice.

Jack Harrison scored twice in a 3-2 win for Leeds in Stratford back in January 2022 and the man who entered the fray for Okafor during the break could have further increased their advantage but his powerful effort was too close to Areola, who managed to produce an instinctive save.

Espírito Santo decided to make a double change on sixty five minutes when both Fernandes and Potts came on for Andrew Irving and Souček.

The visitors continued to probe but another fourteen had passed before more changes were introduced, as Walker-Peters and Soungoutou Magassa took the places of Wan-Bissaka and Paquetá.

West Ham were not only facing the prospect of losing three consecutive games since Graham Potter left the club, but they were also staring at their first defeat here since February 2003.

Four minutes of stoppage time were added at the end of the ninety and just after that announcement was made, the large number of Hammers’ supporters did at least have something to cheer, as Fernandes headed Bowen’s cross past Perri.

West Ham will hope not to make it a hat-trick of defeats against this season’s Premier League newcomers when Burnley are the visitors to Stratford on November 8. Before then though, they must deal with the considerable threat that Newcastle United pose when the Magpies make the trip to East London on November 2.