Toothless Hammers Face Tiresome Defeat - Aston Villa 2-0 West Ham

Nuno Espirito Santo’s side faced a damning 2-0 defeat to Aston Villa as his squad appeared nothing but tired heading into the final game before the international break, and for once, it seems to have come promptly for West Ham.

Without beating around the bush too much, it’s a miserable defeat and one with little to no positives. Nuno’s side struggled from the off, seeing as Jean-Clair Todibo’s calf injury, which he had sustained in the warm-up, saw Freddie Potts introduced. Whilst Freddie wasn’t too bad himself, it annihilated the gameplan the Hammers had set out to achieve, and from Villa scoring the first, it all avelanched down.

Chances were minimal, mindsets were down. Nuno and Paco’s side weren’t able to formulate any chances of serious intent, unless you want to narrow it down to Pablo’s halfhearted attempt in the box.

In reality, West Ham are lucky it wasn’t more - Konstantinos Mavropanos saved at least three goal scoring oportunities, closing the game out at two-nil, but it very easily could’ve been four or five had he not been involved.

Whilst Mavro might’ve been the positive of the match, the same cannot be said for unbothered Bissaka, who had a woeful performance this afternoon, strolling around and almost refusing to run and at one point chased Morgan Rogers for his shirt, a performance of comedy, not courage.

The best positives that can be found are the factors surrounding the game rather than the 90 minutes themselves.

The timing of the international break will see Crysencio Summerville as well as Jean-Clair Todibo returning to the first team, allowing Nuno to go back to the 4-4-2 formation, which has had the highest win percentage for the Hammers this season.

Additionally, the Hammers return from the international break with two home matches, one against Leeds United in the cup on Easter Sunday, which could be an opportunity to gain a world of confidence, whilst on Friday evening we take on Wolves, which could ultimately decide our season, and three points at the Bowl could help bolster our survival chances significantly.

Nottingham Forest, unfortunately, annihilated the Spuds in a 3-0 victory, meaning West Ham remain 18th on 28 points, whilst Spurs are sat in 17th on 29.

It’s very easy to be all doom and gloom after this afternoon’s result - but the fact of the matter is that West Ham have only lost three in the last ten, have closed down a ten-point gap to one and finally have now recovered from all injuries, including our star man Summerville.

Bubbles were miserably burst today, but our dreams were not all crushed. Seven games to go.