When West Ham were hammered at Aston Villa last weekend, James Ward-Prowse made the eyebrow-raising assessment that it had been “an entertaining game for the neutral”. Even that consolation was not on offer here.
In a miserable game on a miserable afternoon, the Hammers were beaten for the third time in eight days, this time by an Everton side who threw in the kind of intense, alert defensive display they are liable to on occasion under Sean Dyche, aided by the difference-making presence of a fit Dominic Calvert-Lewin, whose second-half turn and finish brought the game’s only goal.
The closest either side came to another was when Abdoulaye Doucoure parted the claret sea, only to be denied by a fine Alphonse Areola stop. Until Jordan Pickford saved from Said Benrahma’s 90th-minute volley, West Ham’s only shot on target had been a mishit cross.
It was telling that after conceding four at Villa Park last Sunday, David Moyes’s first lament had been of his side’s inability to forge openings of their own and the tune was a similar one here.
“We’ve not made as many chances as we should have done,” Moyes said. “I didn’t like that at Aston Villa, didn’t think we made enough, didn’t do it at Olympiacos and today we didn’t.”
It may seem a strange focus, given this was the first time in 14 matches this season that Moyes’s men have failed to score. Indeed, the Irons are already on 16 goals in the Premier League this term, a bar they did not reach last season until the vital win in this exact fixture on January 21.
Scratch below the surface, though, and Moyes’s fear is not without foundation. His side’s goal at Villa last weekend came from Jarrod Bowen’s rather hopeful strike which was heading well wide before deflecting in, while Lucas Paqueta’s volley in Greece, stunning as it was, came from a Michail Antonio cross to no one that was rather helpfully half-cleared.
In other words, since the international break, West Ham have not exactly been carving teams apart and Moyes’s biggest concern here perhaps stemmed not from the attacking performance, but from the players that produced it.
In handing Mohammed Kudus a first Premier League start at No10, Moyes deployed the front-four many fans have been calling for in a more adventurous - but hardly kamikaze - lineup, the kind that a team of West Ham’s quality should really be able to field at home to Everton without fear of leaving the backdoor unlocked.
With the Toffees magnificent in defending the box, though, things never quite clicked, Antonio worryingly out of form and each of Bowen, Kudus and Paqueta crowded out.
The long-term suspicion, acknowledged by Moyes himself post-match, is that West Ham are a team only seen to best effect on the break, one that struggle to crack tough nuts.
A kind fixture list over the next month, then, might not be what it seems, with Brentford, Nottingham Forest, Burnley and Crystal Palace to come in the League, all matches in which the onus will, to some extent at least, be on West Ham to make the running.
