Athletes often say the only sound better than the cheers from their own fans is the silence of the opposition. If this is the case, West Ham’s 2-0 defeat to Fulham was a roaring success for the Cottagers as one could quite as easily have heard a pin drop, the London Stadium was evidently so displeased with their club’s efforts.
It was a strong opening five minutes from the Irons with Vladimir Coufal and Mohammed Kudus offering an immediate threat three minutes in. However, a costly mistake from Konstantinos Mavropanos and Lukasz Fabianski saw Fulham’s Andreas Pereira score after just eight minutes.
The remainder of the first half proved to be an exceptionally sluggish effort for David Moyes’s side with the squad appearing unable to coordinate their play and James Ward-Prowse’s final failure to find the net just seconds before the half-time whistle summed up what a dismal performance the first 45 minutes had been.
Little was to change after the break with West Ham continuing to showcase dysfunctionality and, despite his best efforts to the contrary, Fabianski was to concede one more following yet another defensive error from his teammates. After Lucas Paqueta was unable to break past the Fulham midfield, Joao Palhina, Pereira and Alex Iwobi broke through a scattered Irons back line with Pereira finding the back of the net once more with ease.
The 71st minute goal prompted several London Stadium attendees to bid farewell and one could not blame them. To add injury to the previous 90 minutes of insults, just five minutes after coming on the pitch making his Premier League debut, 19-year-old George Earthy was forced to be stretchered off and the Irons nightmare continued.
It was undoubtedly an afternoon to forget for the Stratford side with 3,000 Fulham fans creating far more of an atmosphere than the 60,000 Irons faithful and Moyes must now look to improve his backline and pray for Jarrod Bowen’s quick return if they are to go toe-to-toe with Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday.
9. CAM: Danny Ings
6/10: Joins Kudus in being one of the Irons better performers but there was little strength in his shots and there was subsequently little reason for the Fulham defence to fear. | Getty Images
10. LW: Lucas Paqueta
5/10: Paqueta would have done well to play more simply rather than offering fancy tricks which, when they failed, handed Fulham plenty of possession opportunity. Could have been far more useful considering his evident talent. | Getty Images
11. Str: Michail Antonio
3/10: An absent striker who was often too slow to offer any threat near the goal. Created a chance from the wing but the absence of Jarrod Bowen was felt. | Getty Images
12. Sub - Ben Johnson
4/10: Was a far from note-worthy substitution and contributed to the failings that led to Fulham's second goal. | Getty Images