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West Ham will not leave. This win wasn’t as comfortable as the two-goal margin might suggest, but it does mean they’re breathing down the necks of the top four, with a game in hand and a potentially defining trip to Old Trafford looming on Sunday. Leeds annoyed them enough to feel like they should have left with more, Patrick Bamford in particular enduring a night to forget in front of goal.
But David Moyes ‘team clinically exploited their visitors’ defensive failures, Jesse Lingard fumbled from his own save penalty and Craig Dawson scored in grimly predictable fashion from an expertly worked corner seven minutes later.
By modern standards, the nine-day preparation both teams enjoyed towards this game must have felt like a preseason. At first, it was Leeds, who looked more like his brighter self than he has generally shown in recent weeks, who seemed recharged. In seven minutes they had the ball twice into West Ham’s net, a shot even before Hélder Costa flying a foot overhead.
The first of them was the closest decision, Costa stayed past the second post to meet a diagonal ball from Stuart Dallas and cut for Tyler Roberts to finish. The flag was raised immediately; It turned out that Bamford had pushed the ball into Costa’s offside, although VAR showed there was, at most, the width of a kneecap on it.
Immediately afterward, Bamford swept past Lukasz Fabianski, only to be parried because the ball had passed slightly past the baseline before Raphinha provided the cross.
West Ham had shown signs of waking up, Tomas Soucek gazing wide at Michail Antonio’s cross, before Lingard led a way in from the left. Luke Ayling had little need to hit him with a misplaced left foot, but he did it nonetheless, conceding a clear penalty.
Lingard was not happy last month when, after winning a penalty against Sheffield United, Declan Rice rose through the ranks. This time he took matters into his own hands and put up a poor effort, getting too close to Illan Meslier as the keeper lunged to the right. But the ball came loose and Lingard swept the rebound and perhaps saved himself the wrath of Rice and Moyes.
Before half an hour it was two o’clock. When Ayling narrowly deflected Aaron Cresswell’s free throw, the alarm bells must have sounded strident for Leeds, given that they have conceded more times from corners than anyone in the league and only Chelsea had scored more through that medium than West Ham. . The message was not understood. Cresswell’s rocking delivery swirled past a crowded Meslier, oozing no orders, and Dawson successfully launched himself to a must-see headline.
Meslier did better when he parried a 20-yard effort from Saïd Benrahma, but re-rooted when Dawson ran into another corner from Cresswell. This time the ball hit their left post and Leeds stayed in the game.
Two minutes after the break they should have been charting a clear route back, but Bamford, sent clear by a slide-rule pass from Diego Llorente, wrapped his foot around the ball and shot wide. It was a bad miss, but Fabianski was put to the test shortly after when Raphinha’s deflected air kick demanded a sharp roll.
That was an inventive effort, but just a patch on the strike Pablo Fornals landed on the bar from 30 yards. It was an open game now, Leeds revitalized by a double halftime trade from Marcelo Bielsa and seeing little reason to resist advancing in numbers.
Raphinha shot a meter wide and then, in the 64th minute, crashed directly into Fabianski after substitute Ezgjan Alioski had thrown another excellent opportunity.
West Ham were happy to hold out, but Bamford should have made their final 13 minutes decidedly awkward. He had just kicked a ball from the left when Raphinha pulled it off from the other side and, at six yards, it went off quite a bit. Leeds had one last chance when Dawson somehow cleared Rodrigo’s line. They had been profligate; West Ham had been ruthless and retained a legitimate shot at the stars.
