West Ham have been enjoying home comforts of late but few were forthcoming here as Crystal Palace ended their long wait for a victory on the road thanks to Michael Olise’s stoppage-time winner.
A drab London derby was afforded a dramatic finale as West Ham had a penalty award overturned by VAR on review before Olise’s deflected effort gave Patrick Vieira’s side a 2-1 win, their first away from Selhurst Park since April.
The Hammers had won six games in a row at the London Stadium, a first since the move from Upton Park, and briefly looked on course for a seventh after Said Benrahma marked his 100th appearance for the club with a terrific opener.
Wilfried Zaha fired back before half-time, though, and Moyes’ decision to withdraw his goalscorer as the hosts went in search of a winner was met with chorus of boos that summed up what had been a frustrating afternoon even before Paul Tierney decided Marc Guehi’s light touch on Michail Antonio did not warrant a spot-kick after all.
Palace were without the in-form Odsonne Edouard due to a hamstring problem while Moyes, having sent a mixture of squad players and prospects to Bucharest to fulfil a Europa Conference League dead-rubber in midweek, made eleven changes, with Lukas Fabianski fit to start in goal after a knock and Lucas Paqueta straight back into the side on his return from injury.
Starting has been a problem for the Hammers and the trend continued here as Palace enjoyed the better of the opening exchanges, Ebere Eze going close twice, first with a dipping free-kick and then from Nathaniel Clyne’s cut-back.
Benrahma’s opener on 20 minutes, then, came somewhat out of the blue. Craig Dawson nicked possession with some front-foot defending against Zaha before Paqueta fed the eventual scorer. Benrahma looked isolated amidst a quartet of white shirts but none committed to closing the Algerian down and as space opened up he hammered back across Vicente Guiata and into the top corner.
There was a brief period of alarm when Declan Rice stayed down following a hefty challenge with Cheick Doucoure, the kind that would have had Gareth Southgate on edge as he prepares to name his World Cup squad on Thursday. It was another reminder of both the absurdity of the tournament’s scheduling and Rice’s importance to England’s cause but thankfully the damage was not lasting.
Neither side offered much in terms of creativity and further openings seemed more likely to come as the result of defensive error than attacking guile. So it proved as Dawson put teammate Thilo Kehrer in trouble with an awkward pass, the German’s touch just as poor, and Zaha was alert to take advantage, firing past Fabianski.
Antonio replaced the ineffectual Gianluca Scamacca at the break, but the Eagles posed the greater threat, with Eze and Olise each teasing with curling efforts early in the second half, while Dawson made a crucial last-ditch intervention to deny Zaha.
In between, the withdrawal of Benrahma in favour of Manuel Lanzini prompted an angry home reaction and then a burst of the winger’s name, though Moyes’ call to replace the struggling Tomas Soucek with Flynn Downes was rather more popular.
Antonio’s typically chaotic drive into the box looked to have created yet another opening out of nothing as the forward hit the deck under the faintest of challenges from Guehi but VAR’s intervention rightly let the centre-back off the hook.
For Antonio, meanwhile, worse was to come as his dreadful cross straight into the arms of Guiata with teammates pouring forward in support set up the counter-attack from which Olise stole all three points.
