Anyone connected with West Ham United will surely be elated with their 1-0 win at Fulham which takes them up to 13th place in the Premier League, however, the win for David Moyes’ men can’t paper over the cracks.
In front of a crowd of 24,491 at Craven Cottage, the Hammers were poor. As WhoScored note, the east Londoners had just 23.5 percent possession across the 90 minutes in a game which was their first away win since August.
Even their goal didn’t come from a shot on target, Fulham’s Harrison Reed diverting Jarrod Bowen’s speculative cross into his own net.
If anything, this was a typical ‘back to basics’ David Moyes performance, with West Ham’s defenders blocking 11 of Fulham’s 16 shots at goal, per WhoScored.
The east Londoners are going to need a lot more than that if they want to survive for another season in the English top-flight.
Playing with two strikers up top for the first time in a while, Danny Ings partnering Michail Antonio, should’ve at least seen the away side peppering the host’s goal, but if anything, the stats show that it was Fulham that were making all the running in this encounter.
Four of West Ham’s next six league games are against Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City, with a relegation ‘six pointer’ against Bournemouth in there too.
If Moyes sends his troops out to play in the same way as he did in west London on Saturday, there’s a good chance of a very different outcome.