Burnley all smiles after adding to the gloom over West Ham
Until West Ham can defend a corner, they will not turn one. On a day when Manuel Pellegrini’s increasingly beleaguered team went into free fall, their problems with set-pieces were highlighted by Burnley’s third goal.
Roberto, West Ham’s reserve goalkeeper, compounded his hapless display by punching Ashley Westwood’s corner into his own goal. It was a moment to show how much the Londoners are missing the injured Lukasz Fabianski, having conceded five goals from set-pieces in two weeks.
West Ham now have one point from five games. They are getting worse, not better. “I don’t know if it was an unacceptable performance,” said Pellegrini.
Declan Rice provided a more frank assessment. “We were bullied all over the pitch,” said the midfielder.
“Burnley were winning everything. It’s been like this since the Crystal Palace game. We were nowhere near good enough. We have been poor.”
West Ham were ideal opponents for a Burnley side who, after three successive defeats, should have been fragile themselves. Instead, they returned to winning ways in impressive fashion as manager Sean Dyche was rewarded for showing faith in his strikers. Ashley Barnes signed a new contract on Thursday. Chris Wood followed suit on
Friday. Yesterday, both scored. “People often say to me about playing two strikers but when you have two on that kind of showing, why wouldn’t you?” said Dyche. “There are different ways to skin a cat.”
Barnes and Wood capped a dominant display, in which Dwight McNeil was outstanding. If it was Burnley at their best, forceful and focused, there was something predictable about West Ham’s demise, with Roberto’s struggles with crosses all too apparent.
“I prefer not to analyse individual performances,” said Pellegrini. “I am concerned at the easy goals we are conceding.”
If Burnley were fortunate to be awarded the corner that brought Barnes’s opener, West Ham should have defended it better. With Roberto floundering on his line, James Tarkowski evaded Rice to head McNeil’s cross back into the sixyard box for Barnes to prod in his first goal since August.
McNeil set up the second after Roberto’s wayward throw and Fabian Balbuena’s poor touch allowed him to deliver a low cross for Wood, whose shot should perhaps have been saved.
The New Zealander pioneered a new goal celebration, mimicking a referee consulting VAR, after he had earlier been denied a goal by Lee Mason, the official studying the replays in Stockley Park, who ruled he was marginally offside. “I think it was,” said Dyche. “I am still a fan of VAR.”
Then came the nadir for Roberto, with his own goal, before Ben Mee could count himself unlucky to see a goal contentiously chalked off after the Londoners failed to deal with yet another corner.
West Ham’s attacking efforts were so insipid their fans were reduced to mockingly chanting, “We’ve had a shot”, after a rare attempt on goal by substitute Andriy Yarmolenko. West Ham’s dreadful day, which incorporated Mark Noble twisting his ankle, finished on another low when Manuel Lanzini suffered a shoulder injury and left the pitch on a stretcher. “He will probably be out for some time,” said a gloomy Pellegrini.