BRENTFORD NYLONS
Brentford 2 West Ham 0
Brentford are in their second season in the top flight since the Second World War and yet Hammers have still to register a single point from the three Premier League fixtures in which they’ve faced them. And why would this afternoon be any different? This time last year they were facing a difficult second away leg against Lyon after the Brentford away game. This season they are facing… a difficult second away leg against AZ Alkmaar after this Brentford away game.
Both Declan Rice and Ivan Toney fail to make the starting line-ups, as do eight of the other ten starters for West Ham from last Thursday. So David Moyes has actually done the right thing, resting some of his first teamers before their vital European Conference League semi-final in Holland. But the squad players will surely raise their game to put themselves in David Moyes’ mind for a potential final in June. You’d think.
It seems as though Brentford are more interested in getting something out of this game than West Ham, forcing corners and shots on the break throughout the first quarter of an hour. Damsgaard twice almost has the ball in the net, first from a header, and second from a turn and shot that Fabianski is pleased to see escape his line of sight before it also avoids tucking inside his right hand post.
It’s a surprise to no one in the ground five minutes later when Bryan Mbeumo puts the bees ahead, slotting home Mathias Jensen’s inch perfect pass from the left. What is slightly worrying is that West Ham are on the eve of potentially reaching their first European final for 47 years, and they’re putting in a training ground showing like this, when they are still not absolutely certain of avoiding being sucked into a relegation fight. But that was always the issue for Moyes that the game posed; do you leave the survival elements until the home game against Leeds, or put out a first team against Brentford and risk an injury to a player you’ll need on the trip to Holland on Thursday? Jensen almost proves goal maker yet again a few minutes later with a throw like a caber toss from the left that Schade connects perfectly with, only for Fabianski to save brilliantly, and then yet again when Ben Mee tries to squeeze the rebound home. The one first team player Moyes didn’t need to drop because of the European fixture is turning in another brilliant performance.
Try as they may though, West Ham can’t keep out the relentless Brentford attack, and just before half time Jensen finds Mee with another long throw, and his flick on reaches Wissa who out jumps Aguerd to head home the second. At the other end Danny Ings gets in a shot that David Raya palms away brilliantly at full stretch.
The second half charts more pressure from Brentford, but there is a late flurry from West Ham from which Ings bags a late consolation, or appears to until the dreaded VAR claws it off the scorecard with a less than convincing suggestion of a handball from West Ham’s luckless Divin Mubama. So although West Ham still mathematically need points from their last couple of games to guarantee Premier League safety, they will at least able to take a full strength team to Northern Holland on Thursday.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 2 Ben Johnson, 33 Emerson, 21 Angelo Ogbonna (captain), 27 Nayef Aguerd, 8 Pablo Fornals,, 10 Manuel Lanzini, 12 Flynn Downes, 28 Tomas Souček, 14 Maxwel Cornet, 18 Danny Ings
Substitutes:, 22 Saïd Benrahma, 41 Declan Rice, 75 Divin Mubama, 20 Jarrod Bowen
