Many people would’ve felt this game would see two fairly matched teams bombing forward and scoring plenty of goals.
In reality, it was a tough day at the office for Manuel Pellegrini as his West Ham side lost 2-0 to Everton.
The game started with West Ham playing possession football – a sensible tactic away from home, but it wasn’t long before Everton started to pin back the Hammers, keeping them in their own half and limiting the chances to get forward.
This was largely down to Lucas Digne and Djibril Sidibe pressing high and preventing Ryan Fredericks and Arthur Masuaku from getting forward. This meant Felipe Anderson and Manuel Lanzini didn’t get enough service to make this a competitive game.
In the 17th minute, the Brazilian Bernard jinxed past Declan Rice and Angelo Ogbonna, before beating Roberto at his near post. An incredibly poor and naive mistake to make from the Spanish stopper.
Everton continued to press West Ham high and stop them from playing out from the back. In recent weeks, West Ham have developed their play from back to front, using their full-backs. Everton used Alex Iwobi and Theo Walcott’s pace to stop this transition.
After returning from the break, Richarlison fired a warning shot. His goal was disallowed but he represented the intent of the home side. They wanted to kill the game off.
Despite having the lion share of chances and possession, West Ham remained in the game as Everton failed to be clinical.
Manuel Pellegrini bought on Jack Wilshere and Albian Ajeti to give the midfield energy and provide support for Sebastian Haller.
To some extent, this worked as West Ham won some set-pieces late in the game. Declan Rice and Angelo Ogbonna weren’t the players Pellegrini would’ve wanted in goal-scoring positions but nonetheless, it looked like West Ham might grab an equaliser.
Gylfi Sigurdsson put an end to this hope with a fantastic long-range strike, that came from a breakdown in a West Ham attack.
It was a dismal performance in truth from the Hamers, although Everton were well-deserving of their win.
Let’s have a look at how I’ve judged the players this week:
