Penalty Miss Denies Hammers Return To summit

West Ham United’s winning run in the Sky Bet Championship may be over but, they remain unbeaten since August following a 1-1 draw with Queens Park Rangers in Stratford on Friday night.

Given the suspension handed out to youngster Mohamadou Kanté after his straight red card at Millwall before the extended international break, Nuno Espírito Santo made one change to the team that started at The New Den with Tomáš Souček replacing Joël Piroe, who dropped to the bench. The Czech midfielder was making his first start of the new campaign after suffering ankle ligament damage at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Both defender Joël Veltman and goalkeeper Alphonse Areola were fit enough to join Oliver Scarles, Airidas Golambeckis, Lewis Orford and Soungoutou Magassa amongst the substitutes.

The team were still looking for their first win since the passing of former goalkeeper, coach and club legend Luděk Mikloško last month and although the club had paid another fitting tribute to him before kick-off, the match could have started a lot better for the home side.

After captain Jarrod Bowen had missed an early chance to put his side ahead, the visitors went charging up the pitch after Souček had given up possession to winger Paul Smyth.

In trying to atone for his error, the Czech caught up with Smyth and won the ball albeit outside the area and produced what everyone inside the stadium thought was a fair challenge on him. However, referee Ruebyn Ricardo had other ideas and awarded Julien Stéphan’s side a penalty with just over fifteen minutes gone. Nicolas Madsen beat home goalkeeper Mads Hermansen to give the Hoops the advantage.

The headline for an article published on the club’s official website on Thursday evening stated that the West London outfit were difficult to score against but in truth, the penalty award had clearly rocked the home players as they didn’t really come up with anything worthy of beating the Manchester City loanee stopper Pierce Charles for the remainder of the half.

Morato tried his luck from distance, but the Northern Irishman was up to the task, as he managed to get a hand to the defender’s cross and help it over the top.

The visitors could have gone further in front before the break but thankfully, Hermansen made a great save to keep out Rayan Kolli’s curling shot.

In their last league game here against Wrexham, the home fans were treated to a 6-0 win. Having had to deal without domestic football for just under three weeks, they were expecting a similar performance, but what they were getting was far from it and they were certainly hoping for a turnaround after the break.

Two alterations changed the game against their bitter rivals Millwall last time out and the Hammers’ Head-Coach was hoping that the same would happen here. Edvin Austbø and Pablo Felipe took the places of both Kyle Walker-Peters and Souček.

With those changes having been made, it was expected that there would be a different approach employed, given that the majority booed their team off. Instead, Stéphan’s side continued to work hard and pose a real threat as Kolli was about to take advantage of a mistake by the Nottingham Forest loanee. However, Hermansen was there to spare his teammates blushes.

Although the possession statistics were heavily in favour of the hosts in this half, those in the away end were enjoying seeing their team create numerous chances, but the East Londoners managed to block anything that came their way at this point.

On sixty eight minutes, both Espírito Santo and Stéphan opted to shuffle their packs once again with the former Wolverhampton Wanderers, Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest chief bringing on Orford and Piroe for both Divine Mukasa and Manor Solomon, while Stéphan threw on Tariq Lamptey for Boy Kemper and Richard Kone in place of Kolli.

Within two minutes of the latest substitutions entering the fray, the Irons suddenly sparked into life and despite his initial shot being blocked by former Barnet, Peterborough United and Southampton defender Ronnie Edwards, Bowen hit the back of the net. Max Kilman, Piroe and Valentín Castellanos were all involved in the move that gave the majority of the sold-out crowd something to finally cheer about.

Charles was doing his very best to preserve a point for his side as he did well to deal with efforts from Piroe, Bowen and Austbø.

Both bosses brought on four of their five changes. Stéphan introduced Amadou Mbengue to take the place of Kwame Poku with ten minutes of normal time to play and just as the game entered stoppage time the referee pointed to the spot once again. It has to be said though, the evidence this time was clear for everyone to see, as Mbengue clearly had a handful of Felipe’s shirt.

Bowen scored from the spot in the encounter against Wolverhampton Wanderers here at the start of last month but despite kicking the ball hard enough, he was denied the chance of winning all three points, as Charles kept it out. Not only that though he made an even better save to make sure that the rebound from Arne Engles didn’t beat him.

The Hammers will now have to see how the weekend’s other results go before preparing for the trip to newly promoted Lincoln City on Wednesday night.