A rotated West Ham United side missed the chance to confirm their Premier League safety with a 2-0 loss to Brentford on Sunday at the Gtech Community Stadium.
First half goals from Bryan Mbuemo an Yoane Wissa sealed three points for the Bees as they confirmed a top half finish, with David Moyes making nine changes to his side with Thursday night’s Europa Conference League semi-final second leg against AZ Alkmaar in mind.
As West Ham’s winning run came to an end, here is a look at five of the major talking points from the Hammers’ final London derby of the season.
READ MORE: 'Unbelievable' - What David Moyes has done at West Ham that impresses Brentford's Thomas Frank
A missed chance to secure survival
With Leeds United holding Newcastle United to a 2-2 draw on Saturday lunchtime, West Ham went into their London derby knowing that there were two ways that they could officially secure their survival this weekend, even though it would take a ridiculous set of circumstances for West Ham not to stay up this season.
Option one was to beat Brentford, a task that was always going to be tricky considering Brentford’s home form and the tight turnaround in fixtures, with the first leg kicking off against Alkmaar 66 hours before kick-off in west London.
Option two was to pick up a draw and hope that Leicester City fail to beat Liverpool on Monday night.
That task was made trickier when Moyes opted to use his squad and make nine changes to his side. Key players Declan Rice, Lucas Paqueta, Kurt Zouma, Jarrod Bowen and Said Benrahma were among those who sat on the bench, while striker Michail Antonio missed out altogether with a calf injury.
Brentford themselves were without talisman Ivan Toney up front, but his absence did not stop them from carrying an attacking threat against a heavily rotated West Ham side.
The Bees dominated possession early on, with West Ham struggling to get out of their own half, and when they did, did very little with it.
Early on, Mikkel Damsgaard could and should have made it 1-0 when rising highest to a Kevin Schade cross, but steered wide, having beaten Lukasz Fabianski and Flynn Downes to the ball.
Not for the first time this season, Nayef Aguerd’s poor pass was the source of Brentford’s opening goal. His ball to a marked Downes led to Brentford winger Damsgaard picking him off and the Bees countering in numbers. With West Ham’s back line all forward as they attempted to start a move, Brentford took the most of their numerical advantage, working it wide to Mbuemo, who cooly slotted his shot past Fabianski, who perhaps should have done better with the shot on his 350th career Premier League appearance.
Fabianski did go on to make amends Brentford pushed for a second through Wissa, teed up at the end of a great passing move and run from right-back Aaron Hickey. He shifted onto his right and unleashed a low strike, one which Fabianski reacted fast to keep out.
Brentford then found joy through long throws in quick succession and despite Hammers boss Moyes revealing that his side had worked on defending long throws ahead of the game, it proved to be little avail.
First, Jensen’s long throw-in found Schade at the near post, whose header was punched away by Fabianski. Damsgaard then fired a volley off the clearance which Aguerd blocked. The ball fell to Wissa, whose improvised shot was denied again by Fabianski. Wissa got a toe to it again, with Emerson clearing it only as far as Angelo Ogbonna, with the ball falling to Ben Mee, whose side-footed shot was saved by the diving feet of Fabianski. Five shots in six seconds, all of which were saved or blocked inside the six-yard box. A sign that the second goal was coming
Indeed, it did come as Mee and Wissa caused havoc again from a Jensen long throw. However, this time, it was much easier and more routine. Mee was left unmarked by Aguerd as Mee ran towards the near post to flick on to Wissa, who also got the better of Aguerd to steer a header in towards the back post and in. A goal that highlighted Brentford’s threat at throw-ins and highlighted a West Ham side lacking solidity at the back.
Seconds after West Ham went two behind, they almost pulled a goal back via route one football when Aguerd’s long pass found the run of Ings from the right. A good run led to Ings striking on the volley, forcing David Raya into a needed, but largely routine save.
West Ham started the second half in similar fashion to the way they played the first, on the back foot and needing big clearances. Angelo Ogbonna did exactly that when a Schade cross found Mbuemo’s run, needing Italian Ogbonna to acrobatically block it with his leg in mid-air, which he did very well.
Set-pieces proved to be a menace for Brentford, who should have gone 3-0 up at a corner as Mee flicked on through the box, teeing up Damsgaard for a close-range volley that he was only able to fire over.
Unhappy with West Ham’s inability to really trouble Brentford, Moyes rang the changes on the hour mark, with captain Rice, winger Benrahma and teenage striker Divin Mubama tasked with providing more firepower, threat and physicality to a side who had lacked it.
Two of them were involved in an unusual move that saw West Ham pull a goal back, only for a VAR check to lead to it being harshly overturned for a handball. Benrahma’s cross towards the back post was slightly overhit for the run and jump of Mubama, but as the ball crashed of the post, Mubama, the ball quickly hit the post then Mubama’s hand before falling to Manuel Lanzini, whose volley into the box was nodded into an empty net by Ings. However, despite Mubama’s hand being raised for balance to help limit the damage caused by colliding into the post, referee Michael Oliver disallowed the goal, a decision which Moyes described as being “very strange” in his post-match press conference.
West Ham did have one or two attacks after that and while Benrahma was the driving force on the breaks, his decision making at times let him down, firing one shot at Raya with the Spaniard not needing to do a lot to keep it out.
With nine changes, trying to beat a side that have only lost two league games at home all season was always going to be quite the ask, but Brentford, as manager Thomas Frank stated, had their most comfortable 2-0 win in a “long, long time,” with Brentford joining the list of clubs to have beaten West Ham home and away this season.
West Ham’s priority is Europe, and it absolutely should be, but there will always be the sense of “what if” until safety is officially confirmed, as unlikely as it is that West Ham will be in trouble in the closing weeks of the season.
Fringe players struggle to impress
Although some of the nine changes saw players who have played plenty of football this season start, the same could not be said for others, who did not take the chance presented to them by Moyes.
Among them was winger Maxwel Cornet, making his second Premier League start for West Ham and his first since October 1, while Lanzini was also making his first league start since the opening weekend of the season.
While it could not be said for all of those who did start, the overriding feeling watching on was that there was more answers as to why they were not playing as opposed to questions about their lack of minutes.
It is no surprise that West Ham’s best spell came with Benrahma and Rice introduced, but perhaps more surprising was the fact that West Ham carried more of an attacking threat when Mubama came on, despite having only played three Premier League minutes prior to his run out in west London.
On the plus side, five of the 11 that started the first leg win against Alkmaar were unused substitutes, while Antonio was also not used, although through injury. The hope will be that a rare rest for Moyes’ key men will only help them ahead of a midweek trip to the Netherlands.
Another questionable call
For the fifth time in West Ham’s last six games, the Hammers had a VAR decision wrongly go against them and although they may have hardly laid a glove on Brentford until Ings’ header, the goal should have stood.
The ball did cannon off Mubama’s hand, but in such close proximity to the post, not only did the 18-year-old not know an awful lot about it, but he also had a duty to protect his well being, with his jump the ball set to inevitably end in him crashing into the back post.
Premier League laws state that if a player accidentally handles the ball and it leads to one of his teammates scoring, the goal should stand, so it leads to question marks as to why this goal appeared to have not had said law taken into account.
The decision was matched with fury from Rice, who had not long come on, screaming at the ref, as well as shouting “what is he meant to do” at referee Oliver, with Mubama’s handball anything but intentional.
Moyes said after the game that some explanation was needed as to why it was deemed deliberate, and he is far from wrong. Although West Ham did not deserve to be only one goal behind, there was nothing wrong with it to mean it should have been ruled out, the Premier League rules even state that.
Moyes can feel right to be aggrieved, considering how recent and how common a series of questionable decisions against his side have been, especially in the business end of the campaign.
Moyes’ centre-back dilemma
When both have been fit, Kurt Zouma and Aguerd have been West Ham’s first-choice centre-back duo, but Moyes may find himself straying towards a change with the biggest game of West Ham’s season coming up in three and half days time.
Given his costly errors against Brentford and the reliability Ogbonna has often showed when playing recently, Moyes may find himself turning to the experienced Ogbonna for the midweek trip to Alkmaar.
On his day, Aguerd is excellent and is worth the £30million West Ham spent on him almost 12 months ago, but he has made a number of errors that have proved to be costly, against Manchester United, Crystal Palace and Newcastle United in recent months.
For clearances, they both average 4.5 per game in the Premier League this season and of players making ten or more starts, Aguerd and Ogbonna sit 13th and 14th respectively.
However, the errors Ogbonna has made this season, helped by his experience and Premier League knowhow, have been much less frequent and less costly than Aguerd’s.
In a game as important as the second leg against Alkmaar, West Ham need to pick players they can rely on to get the job done, hoping to seal qualification against a side who have not lost in any of their last 23 European home matches.
Moyes himself hinted that he needed to pick someone he can rely on and make themselves tough to play against in his post-match comments, meaning a switch to Ogbonna could be on the cards.
“We need to get people who are going to be hard to play against and defend and be strong,” said Moyes. “I didn’t think we were tough enough in a lot of the things we did today.”
Divin Mubama gets minutes
With Antonio out and Gianluca Scamacca still sidelined, Moyes opted to hand 18-year-old Mubama a call-up to the squad and early in the second half, the England under-19 international was thrown into the equation with 32 minutes to go.
Perhaps a testament to the teenager’s quality, or the lack of it shown by West Ham’s starting 11, Mubama added more pace, strength, tenacity and helped West Ham’s forward line in the final third, despite having only played three Premier League minutes prior to Sunday’s loss.
In his run out, Mubama provided one of West Ham’s three key passes, won two of his four aerial duels and completed his long accurate long pass.
Although he did top the charts for most fouls committed, they were all challenges that showed his pace, desire to press and dedication to graft. At times, he was even instructing his teammates to join him in pressing.
Should Antonio miss the midweek trip to Alkmaar, there is genuinely a case to be had that Mubama is involved. He really does have that potential and while many of his academy colleagues are set to be involved in an under-19s tournament in India in the coming days, Mubama can really say he is in the first-team picture right now.
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