West Ham United suffered their first home loss in over two months on Sunday afternoon, falling to a 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace.
The Hammers had taken the lead after 20 minutes when Said Benrahma struck from outside of the penalty area, only for Wilfried Zaha and Michael Olise to score at the end of each half to earn three points for Patrick Vieira’s side.
For West Ham, the result drops them down to 15th, their lowest league position in over a month - here are the talking points from the London derby defeat.
READ MORE: Every word West Ham’s David Moyes said on Crystal Palace, Gianluca Scamacca and Lucas Paqueta
Creators of their own downfall
In a game that saw both sides lacking real quality, Palace’s best opportunities and goals both came from mistakes by the Hammers.
Although Palace dominated the opening 20 minutes, until Benrahma scored, all of their best chances came from distance via Olise and Eberechi Eze, who were only able to force Lukasz Fabianski into fairly easy saves without being worked too hard.
After good defensive work from Craig Dawson, quick passing from summer signings Thilo Kehrer and Lucas Paqueta soon got the ball to Benrahma, who cut inside and fired a superb effort past Vicente Guaita, a goal out of nothing that did appear to give the hosts a needed a lift and an undeserved lead.
West Ham could have easily still been ahead at the break but were the victims of their own demise, with Zaha equalising after being gifted a chance via poor passing at the back. After Fabianski rolled it out to Dawson, the centre-back played a pass to Kehrer by the byline that was behind him. Kehrer did his best to keep it in, but was soon picked off and Dawson allowed Zaha too much room to get past him, giving him an easy finish from close range.
For most of the second half, there was not a lot to report about, with the biggest moment of the second half until the final ten minutes coming when Moyes took off Benrahma and Soucek.
Michail Antonio, replacing Gianluca Scamacca at half-time, thought he had won a penalty when going to ground after contact from Marc Guehi. The striker did indeed win the spot-kick, but after a consultation from VAR, the decision was rightly overturned.
Antonio was at the heart of it again in stoppage time, wasting a glorious counter attack with a woeful cross straight at Guaita, leading to Eze countering down the left and switching it to Olise, whose deflected shot earned three points.
It ends a run of six straight wins at home and seven matches unbeaten at the London Stadium across all competitions, hardly the way West Ham would have wanted to start their runs of three matches before the World Cup break.
Michail Antonio’s nightmare re-lived
Five years and nine days before Palace’s win over West Ham, striker Antonio had a moment to forget when in action against the Eagles.
Carrying the ball down the right wing in stoppage time, with West Ham 2-1 up and with seconds to go, Antonio put a cross into the box, it was cleared and within 25 seconds of giving away the ball, Palace equalised through Zaha.
On Sunday, it was similar circumstances. At 1-1, Antonio raced down the right on a golden counter attack, got to the byline and crossed straight at Guaita, despite having Jarrod Bowen, Declan Rice, Downes and Kehrer all to aim at. Just 17 seconds after giving the ball away, Olise got the winner, set-up by Zaha.
He replaced Gianluca Scamacca at the break, with the Italian not seeing much of the ball due to poor service. Yet, despite the £30.5million man doing very little, compared to Antonio, Moyes was probably better off leaving Scamacca on.
Craig Dawson’s costly error
Centre-back Dawson was also at fault, with a poor pass out from the back that gave Palace their equalising goal out of absolutely nothing.
His pass to Kehrer should have been a routine one, but it put Kehrer in a difficult position. He did his best to keep the ball in play, but in hindsight, was probably better off giving the visitors a throw in high up the pitch.
Not only was his pass the incident that gave Palace the counter attack, but he also gave Zaha way too much space when he drove back into the box.
Dawson has been pretty good this season when fit, but for a routine pass, he got this one really wrong.
Substitution jeers
The loudest noise in the stadium from home fans were on two occasions involving Benrahma. First, when he scored and second, when he was replaced by Lanzini.
Fans were absolutely furious, to put it mildly, that the Algerian had come off after his first half goal. After the boos, a chant sung all around the stadium of “Oh Said Benrahma” was chanted around the stadium.
After the game, Moyes revealed that Benrahma was playing with a strapped up knee and was taken off partly because of it, although the Scot later added that he thought the Algerian had not really added barring his goal.
While there were boos for Benrahma coming off, there were plenty of cheers in fact when Soucek was taken off for Downes, a move some fans have wanted from the start of games for some time.
The fact that fans were so vocal about the changes speaks volumes around their feelings towards the recent team selections, with Downes instead of Soucek and Benrahma starting both being recent themes of late.
Jarrod Bowen’s World Cup place
Bowen’s hopes of going to the World Cup later this month are potentially in doubt given his form in recent matches.
Having started off October brilliantly with three goals in four games, he has not netted since and his hopes of sneaking a spot in Gareth Southgate’s England squad look distant.
In the league this season, Bowen has two goals and zero assists having played all but seven minutes in this season’s Premier League. For context, centre-backs Ben Mee (Brentford) and Eric Dier (Tottenham Hotspur) have the same number of goals. Arsenal winger Reiss Nelson also does and he has only played once as a 63-minute substitute.
Leicester City’s James Maddison and Harvey Barnes have both been in good form recently, while Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford has also returned to his best recently.
Moyes said that Bowen was four or five goals away from a place at the World Cup last month. He got three and with the England squad set to be announced this week, it feels as if he may have fallen just a couple of goals short of a place on the plane to Qatar.
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