This was supposed to be the afternoon when West Ham’s attack exploded into life. They had a new striker on the bench, Lucas Paquetá was back from injury and Graham Potter felt bold enough to deploy an adventurous 4-2-3-1 system. It was set up for Paquetá, Jarrod Bowen and Mohammed Kudus to run riot in the first half and for Evan Ferguson to make a goalscoring cameo after joining on loan from Brighton.
In the event there were some encouraging flashes from Ferguson when he came on after 45 minutes of dominance from Brentford. The striker roughed up his markers, almost created an equaliser for Kudus and tested Mark Flekken with a low drive. Yet there was never any prospect of a sustained onslaught from West Ham during a limp second half and, although there have been hints of progress since the departure of Julen Lopetegui last month, a return of one win from Potter’s first six games in charge is a deflating statistic for a side waiting in vain for a charge up the table.
