West Ham recorded back-to-back wins in the Premier League for the first time this season with an extremely comfortable win over Leicester City at the London Stadium.
Thomáš Souček opened the scoring in the 21st minute after some calamitous Leicester defending, and a Jannik Vestergaard own goal doubled the lead right on half time.
The visitors were utterly passive in the first half but had a little more life to them in the second half, but not enough to overturn the deficit. As for West Ham, things were rather comfortable all night.
As it happened
Things couldn’t be going much worse for Leicester City and Ruud van Nistelrooy. The Dutchman had presided over two Premier League wins since joining in November, with only one of those in the last 13 games. The first, however, was a 3-1 win against West Ham. If ever they needed history to repeat itself, it was here at the London Stadium.
But West Ham had every reason to be confident. They had only won one in their previous five, but that one was their 1-0 victory over Arsenal in their last game. They were 10 points clear of their opponents and the relegation zone before a ball was kicked, a win surely enough to all but secure survival.
They wouldn’t take the first shot once the game started, though. Instead, it came from Wilfred Ndidi, who fired low from the edge of the area before being denied by a relatively comfortable Alphonse Areola in the second minute. It was a good start.
It’s a shame for Leicester, then, that they didn’t build on that. At all.
After the early shot, West Ham steadied themselves and never wobbled again. For 20 minutes, they had virtually all the ball and faced no pressure. On 21 minutes, they took the lead, and Leicester did themselves no favours whatsoever in the defensive department. Again.
It was a catalogue of errors. Souček played a cross into the area which Facundo Buonanotte half-cleared into the path of Aaron Cresswell. He struck from distance towards Vestergaard, who made no effort to connect with the ball. So, it dropped for Mohammed Kudus in the six-yard box and he fired a shot into the face of Mads Hermansen. The ball then fell perfectly for Souček to tap home for the perfect gift on his 30th birthday. The Hammers were in front without really doing much at all.
Embed from Getty ImagesYou’d expect Leicester to ramp up their intensity after going behind, but no. They instead spent the rest of the first half looking passive and resigned to both defeat on the day and relegation in the season.
Just before halftime, West Ham doubled their lead. Kudus won a dubious corner after his cross flew out of play, and James Ward-Prowse stepped up to whip it towards the near post. Jamie Vardy was perfectly positioned to clear, but he didn’t make full contact with his header, allowing Jared Bowen to outmuscle him before trying his luck from the narrowest of angles. The shot took one big touch off Vestergaard and then another off Hermansen before squirming into the bottom corner.
In the end, it went down as an own goal from the big Dane at the back, his evening growing ever worse. West Ham’s halftime lead wasn’t even much a reflection of their performance. In many ways, Leicester were defeating themselves.
Embed from Getty ImagesThey did improve slightly in the second half. Granted, they weren’t Vicente del Bosque’s Spain, but they were in the game, and that was a marked improvement. There was some vigour, some tenacity, some drive. The introductions of Stephy Mavididi and Harry Winks helped on that front.
Still, chances were hard to come by. Bilal El Khannouss hit a volley which was deflected out for a corner, and Vestegaard looped a header from the resulting set piece into the grateful arms of Areola. That was in the 67th minute, and six later, Ndidi would try his luck from the edge of the area once more, but this time he blasted it high and wide. West Ham, for their part, stayed in relative control at the expense of creating any real opportunities.
That was until the 80th minute, when Bowen won the ball on the halfway line and drove goalwards. With options left and right and a noticeable absence of Leicester players trying to recover the space, he chose substitute Evan Ferguson to his left. He was through on goal, took a touch to steady himself, and then another, before Vestergaard slid in to block the shot on impact. And that was the biggest chance of the half.
In the end, slight Leicester recovery or otherwise, West Ham won this in second gear. The visitors don’t just look like a side doomed to relegation, but one which has already internalised that. If they are to pull off a miracle and stay in the Premier League, they’ll have to do an awful lot better when they travel to Stamford Bridge in a little over a week.
As for West Ham, this was a big win. It’s the first time they’ve won consecutive games all season, and they’re now 13 points clear of the drop. Things will not be as easy as this in their next game against Newcastle United, but for now, they can blow bubbles to their heart’s content, knowing relegation is all but evaded.
The lineups
WHU: Areola; Wan-Bissaka, Todibo, Kilman, Cresswell, Scarles; Souček, Ward-Prowse, Álvarez; Bowen, Kudus
LEI: Hermansen; Justin, Faes, Vestergaard, Kristiansen; Ndidi, Soumaré; Buonanotte, El Khannouss, De Cordova-Reid; Vardy