Moyes laments ‘silly mistakes’ as West Ham slip into drop zone
West Ham find themselves in the bottom three after two wretched defensive blunders and a video assistant referee decision combined to help them throw away a two-goal lead against fellow strugglers Brighton.
David Moyes’s men looked firmly on track for a much-needed victory after two delicious volleys from Robert Snodgrass eased them 3-1 ahead by the hour mark. Snodgrass had also supplied the free-kick for Issa Diop’s but West Ham’s defensive fragility came back to haunt them again.
Goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski punched the ball straight at Angelo Ogbonna to give Brighton a way back just after the interval, and Diop was culpable as Pascal Gross scored to set up a grandstand finish. Things got worse when Glenn Murray netted Brighton’s equaliser after VAR consideration.
Moyes, whose side have gleaned just 12 points from a possible 39 at home, said: “I thought the performance in the main was very good but we made a couple of really silly mistakes. That tarnished it. We gave them a leg up twice out of nothing. I am really disappointed with the way we defended the goals.”
The mood at the start had been subdued, a sense of common apprehension as these two out-of-form sides approached a match neither could afford to lose. West Ham had taken one point from their previous four league matches and have trips to Manchester City and Liverpool coming up.
Their visitors arrived clutching just one league win from their previous nine outings.
Thus it was an anxiety-fuelled, errorstrewn opening but West Ham struck first, on the half-hour mark. Brighton held a high defensive line at Snodgrass’s free-kick but Diop timed his run to perfection and was inches onside as he tucked the ball beyond Mathew Ryan.
It was 2-0 seconds before half-time. Snodgrass again initiated, breaking down the right then, as Brighton failed to clear the cross, volleying home via a deflection off Adam Webster.
Game over? Nothing with West Ham can be that simple, and they were rocked back on their heels when they handed the visitors a calamitous own goal immediately after the restart.
Fabianski punched Pascal Gross’s corner straight into defender Ogbonna and the ball rocketed back into the net to stun the West Ham support.
Yet West Ham were back on course 10 minutes later with another moment of inspiration from Snodgrass. Aaron Cresswell’s corner was cleared only to Snodgrass, 20 yards out, who delivered the sweetest volley that was surely goalbound even if it did clip Bernardo on its path past Ryan.
There was, however, another defensive disaster around the corner, Gross punishing Diop’s hesitancy to deal with a bouncing ball to roll it slowly into the net with 15 minutes remaining. With home nerves clanging, Brighton sensed their chance, and four minutes later were level when Murray turned the ball home, surviving a lengthy VAR inspection for a possible handball. “I was more disappointed over the defending than the VAR,” Moyes said.
Brighton might even have snatched victory, Fabianski pushing substitute Solly March’s free-kick over the bar.
Graham Potter, the Brighton manager, said: “I am proud of the players and how they reacted after we suffered a bit. Over the 90 minutes we showed good quality, good personality, good attitude, good character. The players feel we could have won it. It wasn’t as if we were hanging on at the end.”