Smashed To Pieces

No beating around the bush on this one. Brentford were abysmal at the London Stadium last night as the Hammers carved through them with ease and were extremely unfortunate to only score 4.

The final scoreline of 4-2 was extremely flattering on the visitors as they had no answer to the fast flowing football of a West Ham United team desperate to turn their fortunes around, having lost the last 6 on the bounce in all competitions.

David Moyes had spoken before the game about a new contract being on the table for him to sign, but that he was waiting to do so until the end of the season. Perhaps he’s hoping to be able to renegotiate the terms to be far more personally lucrative and if they have many more performances like last nights he will get that wish.

From the moment they kicked things off the hosts stamped their authority on proceedings and by the time the Bees managed to string together a meaningful period of possession 10 minutes later they were already 2-0 behind.

The worst thing about that scoreline is that it could easily have been doubled if Mohammed Kudus and Tomas Soucek had their shooting boots on. Within 3 minutes of kick-off Kudus was fed the ball in acres of space on the edge of the box but he shanked his shot so badly that it flew out into touch for a Brentford throw-in on the far touchline.

A minute later Soucek followed this up by expertly chipping the ball over the bar from point blank range, after the ball had been slid beautifully through to him from the left wing, as he floated away from whoever was supposed to be marking him.

His finish would have made for a stunning drop goal at Twickenham, and given England’s loss in the Calcutta Cup the previous day they could probably do a lot worse than to give him a call-up, but it fell to his teammate Jarrod Bowen to show him what was needed here at the London Stadium less than 60 seconds later.

The Hammers midfielders flooded forward on the left once again, to fill the void where the right side of the Bee’s defence should have been, before providing the perfect cross to the feet of the onrushing Bowen for him to fire past a stranded Mark Flekken with just 5 minutes on the clock.

Less than 2 minutes later Bowen double his and the Hammer’s account for the evening with a second goal as similar to the first as Dolly the Sheep was to Finn (who was the original sheep that Dolly was a cloned from).

As an away fan the most frustrating thing about Bowen’s quickfire brace was how little he had to do get it. The right side of our defence had disintegrated as the hosts tore down that wing at will to the point where, having arrived moments before kick-off, I hadn’t yet realised that it was Zanka and Keane Lewis-Potter on that side rather than our normal first choice pairing of Ethan Pinnock and Mads Roerslev.

Given that Pinnock is one of the last remaining members of the treatment room at Jersey Road this should have dawned on me earlier, but it had not done so for as far as I was concerned that side of the defence had been a mere mirage thus far.

When Brentford pulled one back entirely against the run of play just 4 minutes after the completion of Bowen’s Brace I was beginning to wonder if both defences were mirages.

Neil Maupay pulled one back for the bruised Bees by rifling a pile driver past a statuesque Alphonse Areola after Zanka and Lewis-Potter proved their existence was real with some intricate interplay on the right to break up field from yet another Hammer’s attack.

Having halved the deficit out of nothing, we should have had the chance to equalise from the spot moments later as Kudus shoved Sergio Reguilon over in the box for an absolute stonewall penalty that could be seen from the other end of the stadium.

The only people who apparently didn’t see it were the referee and the VAR lot back at Stockley Park…

These two little nuggets of hope seemed to finally rouse the Bees from their early slumber as we actually defended reasonably well for the rest of the half and despite their complete dominance of possession we managed to restrict their lead to just 2-1 at the break.

As teams headed down the tunnel and I trudged down the stairs to grab a much needed drink I turned to the man next to me and uttered the famous last words “it can only get better” because I know we are a far better team than we had shown so far.

The first 15 minutes of the second half were a huge improvement from the Bees as they managed more than a sprinkling of attacks into the Hammer’s half, then Bowen put this burgeoning comeback back in it’s box by completing his first ever senior hat-trick.

His final goal of his maiden hat-trick came from yet another flowing move down the hosts right that ended with a teasing cross through the corridor of uncertainty for him to nod home from an almost identical position to his first two finishes. Even from my long range viewpoint the unleashing of relief was clear to see in his celebration.

As with his quickfire brace in the first half his goal this half was followed up minutes later with the host’s 4th of the night.

This time Bowen delegated the scoring to Emerson Palmieri who stepped up to the task beautifully with a cultured finish from 30 yards out that flew straight as a javelin into the top left corner of the goal. It was a finish of such beauty that even seeing my team go 4-1 I could not resist a little applause for the brilliance of the shot.

This second quickfire Hammer’s brace, combined with a long overdue triple substitution, fired the visitors back to life again.

We often come alive in the final 15 minutes of a match and we did so again here but, even with the host’s legs falling out from underneath them, this time round we had left ourselves far too big of a mountain to climb.

With 8 minutes remaining and the home fans starting to filter out towards the tube stations two of the visitors substitutes combined to provide the Bee’s with a consolation goal. Mikkel Damsgaard picking the ball up in midfield before feeding Yoane Wissa down the left who advanced to the edge of the box before smashing a low drive under Areola and into the bottom left corner.

The final 8 minutes of normal time and the 7 of injury time were all Brentford as they tried desperately to score the brace they needed to walk away from what had until this point been an unmitigated disaster of a performance.

It was a wonderful dream as the visitors played their best football of the evening but, like climbing Mount Everest in nothing more than a shell-suit, it proved to be an impossible task.

Frank Onyeka and Ivan Toney both came close though with Areola having to pull off incredible claw-out saves from both in the dying minutes to keep the host’s lead intact.

So a game that could easily have ended 7-5 to the hosts if both teams had scored their sitters, as well as the ones they did put away, instead ended just 4-2 to the Hammers as they deservedly returned to wining ways after a rough period.

As for the Bee’s… well there is at least some hope to take out of the final 15 minutes of the match, but the rest of it was rather sobering to witness and with Chelsea up next at home before a trip to the title-hunting Arsenal we could be heading to Burnley for a relegation 6 pointer in 19 days time.

That may be the next Bee’s game I’m able to make and all I can hope for is that we play better than we did last time we went to Turf Moor when I sat through what, to that date, was the worst 45 minutes, from the visitors, that I had ever seen in a football ground.

At least the only way from here is up.