West Ham in trouble as Moyes suffers ‘day of embarrassment’
David Moyes warned it might be treacherous to drive through the snow to play in South Wales and, boy, was he proven correct. West Ham slipped up big style.
It was tight enough in the relegation fight, but Swansea have ensured it is now even tighter.
“That was the worst performance since I’ve been at West Ham,” Moyes said after his side’s third defeat in four league games. “We had no intensity, we thought we could just stroll about. This was a day of embarrassment.”
As awful as the visitors were – and they were genuinely terrible – Swansea were everything Carlos Carvalhal wished for after their 4-1 drubbing at Brighton. Buoyant from the off, they were two up by the break as they climbed out of the drop zone.
“It was epic rock and roll,” Carvalhal said. “When we beat Liverpool here and Arsenal here, we had to dance to their music. Today we danced to our own music. But we know it could turn to opera.”
Quite. Although for now the Fat Lady not welcome at the Liberty. In nine league matches under Carvalhal, they have won five, drawn two and lost two. By virtue of this, their biggest win of the campaign, Swansea leapt from 18th to 13th – indeed, above their opponents.
Carvalhal declared before the game that, because of their recent run, Swansea had “the mental edge” over their rivals in the drop race, but here their superiority was in every facet.
It took the excellent Ki Sung-yueng just eight minutes to break the deadlock with a clinical left-foot finish from 25 yards. West Ham’s sense of doom only deepened when Winston Reid was knocked unconscious and injured a knee on the way down. That was sustained in the goalmouth melee which saw Declan Rice enact a heroic clearance off the line from Federico Fernandez. However, in the 32nd minute Rice turned villain, leaving Mike van der Hoorn free to head home Ki’s corner.
In the 48th minute any slim chance of a West Ham comeback was all but nullified when Andy King, the Welsh international making his first start for Swansea, tapped in.
The build-up summed up the woes of the visitors. Adrian turned away the point-blank header of Andre Ayew – who appeared especially determined to make an impact against the club which let him go in January – but only into the face of Javier Hernandez and the ball deflected directly to the former Leicester midfielder.
Andre Ayew also earned Swansea’s fourth, in the 63rd minute when he was chopped down by Cheikhou Koyate. Andre’s brother, Jordan, converted from the penalty spot.
West Ham substitute Michail Antonio grabbed a consolation with a neat swivel and shot on the 79th minute, but, in truth, it did not even amount to that. The nail-biting starts here.