West Ham’s aspirations for a European return took another hit following a disappointing 2-0 home defeat to Fulham, with Andreas Pereira scoring both goals. This comes after the Hammers’ 2-0 loss to Bundesliga leaders Bayer Leverkusen in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final last Thursday.
The defeat to Fulham also cost them the opportunity to move up to sixth place in the Premier League and back into the European mix. This was Fulham’s first victory at West Ham since 2001 and having dominated the reverse fixture 5-0 in December, they completed a league double over their London rivals for the first time since 1966.
Based on this lacklustre performance, Leverkusen will not be overly concerned about the return match. Despite this, West Ham had an early chance to take the lead when Lucas Paqueta’s pass found Vladimir Coufal in the box, but his shot was saved by Bernd Leno and Michail Antonio subsequently blazed over from close range.
Mohammed Kudus then narrowly missed before the lively Paqueta, who is suspended for the Leverkusen game, hit the side-netting.
Despite a promising start, West Ham found themselves on the back foot after Fulham’s first attack just nine minutes in, a moment that would have left manager David Moyes exasperated.
Konstantinos Mavropanos’ attempt to intercept a deep cross from Alex Iwobi only resulted in him inadvertently setting up Pereira, who had been left unmarked by Nayef Aguerd.
The Brazilian easily slotted the ball past Hammers keeper Lukasz Fabianski and into an open goal.
Pereira nearly doubled his tally moments later when he slid in to connect with Willian’s tempting cross, but his effort went wide.
Coufal, who has yet to find the back of the net for West Ham since joining three and a half years ago, demonstrated why when he squandered a decent chance from Paqueta’s cross.