West Ham 2-3 Leicester: 90 minute review

West Ham lose 3-2 for the second week in a row, poor finishing and some awful defending cost the hammers big time today.

West Ham were hoping Leicester would have a Champions League hangover from midweek, unfortunately that wasn’t the case, Darren Chapman was at the game and gives his review of the match.

90 minutes review

Slow out the blocks

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A typical West Ham slow and sloppy start despite the positive team sheet, five minutes in and Leicester took the lead thanks to a terrible goal-keeping mistake, the ball was given away in midfield, a cross from Riyad Mahrez flew straight in past Darren Randolph. Two minutes later and from a superbly worked set piece this time, the hammers found themselves 0-2 down, Robert Huth with a free header to make it two. Awful defending from the Hammers – not the first time I have said that this season. This was all within the first seven minutes.

Payet who?

Twenty minutes into the game and West Ham finally woke up, a foul on the edge of the box, up stepped Lanzini twenty-five yards from goal, he curled the ball beautifully into the top corner to reduce the deficit, 1-2 in what was a very open game with both teams going for it in the opening half hour.

Set Piece errors

The hammers nearly drew level just after the half hour mark, Antonio with some great work down the right, cutting in and smashing the ball but forcing a good save from Schmeichel. Just when you started to feel a come back was on, West Ham`s set-piece woes continued. A Leicester corner in which again caused our defence all types of problems, Carroll missed a chance to clear at the near post and the ball landed at the feet of Vardy, who made it 1-3 to the champions. Absolutely dreadful defending from West Ham. Half time 1-3.

Carved open at the back

Leicester were happy to come out in the second half and just sit back. They have obviously been watching West ham’s last few games and did their homework well. Bilic’s men just can not seem to score when they dominate and as for the back four, well with no pace the one person they didn’t want to face was Jamie Vardy. The first chance of the second half should have killed us of in truth, Vardy running through one-on-one but somehow managed to clip it over the bar.

Ayew on target again

Lanzini whipped a corner in and used Andy Carroll to his strengths, the big man peeled off to the back post, heading the ball back across goal for Ayew to head home for 2-3. Leicester continued to sit back, and the hammers started playing the long ball game. From the wings or down the middle the ball was lumped up towards our target man Carroll. This nearly worked for West Ham in the 77th minute, a header from Carroll was saved down low by Schmeichel, with thanks to goal-line technology it was deemed no goal.

Poor finishing

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Antonio was superb all day, his hard work nearly paid off with a fantastic run at the Leicester defence, he slipped a ball into Ayew who couldn’t believe his luck finding himself clean through on goal. Instead of a calm finish, he lashed the ball miles wide with his weaker right foot. Into the 90th minute a Snodgrass free-kick on the edge of the box, hammers fans were on the edge of their seats. The ball smashed the wall and fell into the path of Carroll, six yards out and only the keeper to beat, he managed to smash it right at Schmeichel. And that was that, a 2-3 defeat which now leaves West Ham only nine points above the relegation zone.