West Ham drop effortless match and giveaway crucial points

West Ham’s chance to cement themselves in the top-four of the Premier League came up fruitless as not one player seemed up for the match. Crystal Palace would go on to steal a greasy win.

The teamsheet before the match saw the strongest team put forward for West Ham. Manuel Lanzini returned to the lineup and replaced Pablo Fornals as the central attacking midfielder. Attacking football has been the Hammers bread and butter lately, and the selected starting XI allowed every opportunity to continue this.

The entire first half was an eventless showing from both teams. Neither the Hammers nor Palace wanted to take a chance and attack the opposition. Of the two teams, West Ham had the better opportunities with Guita getting lucky on two point-blank chances that hit him to stay out with Sebastien Haller on the end of both opportunities. Palace would also come close as Ryan Fredericks pulled out a goal-saving line clearance that kept the match even at nil-nil.

The second half started with both teams unchanged but the mentality for West Ham seemed to change. The Hammers were firing up more attacking play and sustained pressure which eventually led to Haller’s fourth goal of the season. Pinned in their own end from a throw-in, Cresswell, Anderson, Lanzini, and Rice played some perfect passing triangles which eventually freed up a ball to Noble who’s no-look pass found Anderson.

Once worked across the pitch, Yarmolenko would find Ryan Fredericks down the wing. His patience saw an opening for an inside pass that Haller made no mistake on and his sliding shot put the Hammers up 1-0 in the 54th minute.

Just ten minutes later Palace would equalize on a van Aanholt penalty. Declan Rice swung his arm erratically on a setpiece that was sent across the box to Kouyate. His wild elbow was spotted and despite his efforts to argue the call, the penalty was given and converted.

The match would resume its first-half form as an uneventful game until the dying moments of the game. Another setpiece that the Hammers failed to deal with saw Kelly slot the ball across the box to Ayew who slid the ball past a helpless Roberto to take the lead. VAR would rule it a goal after the linesman called it offside. In no way was the review “clear and obvious” as the rules state, as the on-screen graphics failed to show the player onside, but the call was overturned.

West Ham used the six added minutes to try and attack the Palace defense, including an over-the-top ball that say Gary Cahill tackle Haller to the pitch over. No call, no second thought, no use of VAR, no sense.

West Ham drop three important points against a team that is drastically worse than they are. Set-piece defending was a massive issue exposed as well as the visible lack of desire by some players to play in this match Some of the efforts on the pitch were extremely disappointing and Pellegrini needs to get his men back in line immediately to stop these poor performances.