Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
West Ham The fans chose the perfect night to boycott as their team suffered a disappointing 2-0 defeat at home brentford,
Goals from Igor Thiago and Mathias Jensen were enough to secure their first win of the season for Brentford, who should have won by a much greater margin.
Nuno Espirito SantoFirst of all home match in charge It coincided with a planned stay away organized by groups of supporters in protest against the club’s board.
It seemed as if West Ham’s defense didn’t even bother to perform worryingly poorly.
That day Graham Potter – who was sacked by the Hammers the previous month – was named Sweden’s new managerHis replacement provided a clear example of the mess he has been left with.
West Ham have now lost their first four home matches of a season for the first time in their history, and have only won twice at the London Stadium all year.
There were thousands of empty seats around the cavernous ground, and those who stayed away also missed out on the curious home start line-up, including a rare sighting of Andy Irving.
The 25-year-old Scottish midfielder was handed his full domestic debut just 780 days after signing for the club from Austria Klagenfurt.
Nuno removed one of his better performers in El Hadji Malik Diouf, while keeping two strikers – Callum Wilson and Callum Marshall – on the bench with Lucas Paqueta in attack.
It was the Brazilian who played Jarrod Bowen in for the initial chance, but the Hammers captain’s shot across goal was blocked all the way for a throw-in.
Brentford soon began to prey on West Ham’s defensive weaknesses, not least their inability to defend set-pieces. First, Jordan Henderson fired a free-kick which Nathan Collins headed home with a header, before Thiago hit the crossbar from Dango Ouattara’s flick-on.
keeper of hammers alphonse arriola Then Mikael Damsgaard’s header was deflected away and Thiago’s shot deflected. The corner was by now just an invitation to have a pop on goal and Ouattara fired another free header wide.
The only surprise was that it took 43 minutes for Brentford to score.
The goal came courtesy of Max Kilmann’s unseen effort to clear a routine ball over the top, which allowed Kevin Schade to sneak in behind and hook the ball past Thiago. Areola got a hand to his shot but the ball went wide and inside the far post.
It was Brentford’s 15th attempt on goal during the first half while West Ham had two attempts, their second a Bowen curler being dropped by Caoimhin Kelleher in stoppage time.
Thiago had time to find the net again before the break, but his effort was ruled out by VAR for offside.
Nuno’s response to being a goal down at the break was to bring in three new defenders at half-time; Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Konstantinos Mavropanos and Diouf.
He did nothing to help, with Bees centre-back Sepp van den Berg wasting a free hit on goal from another corner, before Schade’s header came back off the crossbar.
Areola also made saves from Thiago and Keane Lewis-Potter had a shot narrowly saved. Brentford eventually won in stoppage time when Lewis-Potter cut back for fellow sub Jensen to fire the ball into the roof of the net.