On the landmark occasions of his 40th and 50th birthdays, while in charge of Everton, David Moyes was gifted three points by his players but the day after turning 60, the Scot was left empty-handed as Liverpool came from behind to win 2-1 at the London Stadium.
West Ham’s players will argue their present was delivered early, in the form of Sunday’s 4-0 romp at relegation rivals Bournemouth, which left the club effectively one win from safety heading into this meeting with Jurgen Klopp’s side.
Such has been the Hammers’ resurgence in recent weeks that this was not a defeat that instantly felt especially damaging, particularly as Moyes’s side troubled the visitors on the counter-attack throughout and might have taken more from the game had VAR not chalked off Jarrod Bowen’s goal for a tight offside shortly before Joel Matip’s winner.
The Irons remain five points clear of the relegation zone and have a chance to extend that cushion in Saturday’s early kick-off, when they travel to a Crystal Palace side who appear to have clocked off as quickly as they clocked on under Roy Hodgson.
Set-pieces were always likely to be a factor in this fixture, with both sides’ weekend wins the product of that threat and it was West Ham – surprisingly the division’s stingiest set-piece outfit at the other end before this evening – that were undone, Matip shaking the attentions of Michail Antonio to head home unmarked mere seconds after he had been denied by Lukasz Fabianski’s reflex save from another corner.
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Joel Matip's bullet header has Liverpool in front for the first time in the game 🙌 pic.twitter.com/iyUtESUyKl
It was a frustrating lapse, though not the first, with the in-form Diogo Jota having squandered two decent chances during a first-half notable for two fine long-range strikes.
The first came from Lucas Paqueta, West Ham’s club-record signing leathering a superb effort past international teammate Alisson from 25 yards after exchanging a pair of one-twos with Antonio.
Cody Gakpo’s response came six minutes later, an accurate if not especially ferocious hit dipping in off the base of the far post after West Ham’s centre-backs had backed off.
Virgil van Dijk was guilty of the same offence when Bowen latched onto Paqueta’s pass and fired home but VAR and then Matip’s forehead determined this was Liverpool’s night, their faint hopes of a top-four finish still just about alive, for all snookers are required.
Moyes conceded on Tuesday that he had puzzled over Trent Alexander-Arnold’s new midfield role in the build-up to this fixture.
“Watching games you can find it difficult working out which systems the teams are playing because of the way the managers are setting them up, how they are trying to play,” he said. “Maybe they play one way in and out of possession. We are seeing different variations of it more regularly.”
He said, too, that he had given special consideration to how to counter the Liverpool man’s unorthodox positioning, but that did not translate to an effective job.
Alexander-Arnold’s assist for Gakpo’s long range strike will hardly register within what is quite the career compilation, but the space that both he and the Dutchman were afforded in the inside-right channel proved a persistent problem throughout the first-half, with West Ham outnumbered in midfield and the Englishman more often that not the spare man in area of the pitch where he is as dangerous as anyone in the division.
Critics of Alexander-Arnold’s defending will point out that West Ham’s opener came from a move down his flank, but if anything the 24-year-old did his duties well in tracking Said Benrahma’s run outside.
