Irons leave it Sou late...

... AND LOOKMAN FLOPS WITH LAST-GASP PANENKA

ADEMOLA LOOKMAN was heartbroken after blowing a golden chance to earn Fulham a point in a dramatic finish at West Ham.

The Cottagers only fell behind in the first minute of stoppage time when Tomas Soucek looked to have fired the home side to victory.

But Said Benrahma then fouled Tom Cairney on the stroke of full-time to give Lookman the chance to level matters from the spot.

The yo u n g s t e r , incredibly, tried to beat Lukasz Fabianski with a

Panenka spot- kick but scuffed the effort and the Hammers keeper almost had time to walk back to the centre of his goal and collect it.

Poor Lookman must have wanted the ground to open up.

Not that it bothered West Ham, who didn’t half get away with it.

Their return of eight points from their previous six games was much better than many predicted, given they were against sides that finished in the top eight last season.

And while they lost the last of them to defending champions Liverpool last week, the run will have given them confidence for their next dozen games, most of which David Moyes’ men will consider winnable.

They were certainly fancied to take this one with relative ease against a Fulham side who didn’t record their first win of the season until last Monday.

And with the home side starting like a train and unlucky not to be at least a goal up, if not two or three, in the opening seven minutes, it looked like it would be a formality.

Aaron Cresswell’s shot was well blocked by Ola Aina and, when the ball fell to Arthur Masuaku, his effort required Fulham goalkeeper Alphonse Areola to make a decent

save. Areola then reacted smartly to tip Jarrod Bowen’s well-struck volley over his bar after it had taken a slight deflection off Aleksandar Mitrovic on its way to goal.

And a minute after that, Sebastien Haller rose superbly but his header hit the top of the woodwork.

Fulham must have wondered what was hitting them but, credit to Scott Parker’s men, they were able to weather the early storm.

And it wasn’t until shortly before the halfhour mark that they could have been in trouble again, although this time Cresswell’s lovely deep cross was met with a poor header from Bowen and the danger was averted.

By now, Fulham were knocking the ball around with something bordering on confidence, buoyed by West Ham’s failure to score and that triumph against West Brom at the start of the week.

They were even on top of the possession stats by the time referee Robert Jones blew his whistle for half-time, although they had failed to turn their time on the ball into any clearcut chances.

All too often the final pass or shot wasn’t clinical enough.

And the one time it was, from Bobby DecordovaReid, Fabian Balbuena dealt well with his cross. West Ham were quickly on the front foot again at the start of the second half.

Areola pulled off another fingertip save, this time getting the faintest of touches to Cresswell’s crispy-struck free-kick to help it on to the bar.

Bowen’s shot from the resulting corner struck Tosin Adarabioyo and left Areola stranded, but thankfully for the visitors the deflection was strong enough to send it just wide of a post.

Just like in the first half, Fulham got away with the early onslaught and settled into the game.

This time the visitors even managed to carve out a couple of better openings but Lookman’s free-kick was comfortable for Fabianski and so, too, was Decordova-Reid’s low drive a short while after.

Much of their good work stemmed from AndreFrank Anguissa in the e middle of the park – those e long legs of his giving West t Ham’s midfield plenty to think about.

The efforts of Anguissa and Areola were in vain when Benrahma laid the ball off to Soucek and he slotted it home.

Lookman should have levelled but he produced a terrible penalty.

It will be a long time before he tries one of those again.

REFEREE: Robert Jones 6.