Graham Potter ignited his reign as West Ham manager after two first-half goals in the space of 131 seconds propelled him to his first victory in a helter-skelter 3-2 win over Fulham at the London Stadium.
Adama Traore missed a glorious chance to rescue a point for the visitors when he inexplicably skied from close range after good work from teenage substitute Josh King deep into stoppage time.
Potter’s first game in charge did not go to plan as the Hammers exited the FA Cup with a 2-1 defeat by Aston Villa in the third round on Friday but his side were the gleeful recipients of two goals from Fulham errors.
The West Ham boss, who replaced Julen Lopetegui last week, returned them to winning ways in his first home game as Carlos Soler pounced on an Andreas Pereira mistake to break the deadlock against the run of play (31).
By that point, Fulham had already struck the crossbar through Harry Wilson but they were soon two behind as Aaron Wan-Bissaka kept alive a cross from Guido Rodriguez to set up Tomas Soucek for a decisive second (33).
West Ham scored through their first shot on target
West Ham, who had lost three games in a row across all competitions – conceding a total of 11 goals – saw their lead halved when Alex Iwobi’s cross beat Lukasz Fabianski after Raul Jimenez went to play the ball (51).
It set the second half up for a sustained Fulham assault but a mistake from Bernd Leno under pressure from Danny Ings allowed Lucas Paqueta to re-establish the home side’s lead (67).
In keeping with West Ham’s season, they were unable to rest comfortably for too long, however, as another Iwobi cross evaded the touch from Harry Wilson to beat Fabianski in what was a carbon copy of his first (78).
The result means Potter’s side rise to 12th in the Premier League while Fulham stay in ninth place.
West Ham’s Lucas Paqueta scores their side’s third goal of the game
How Potter’s first win was gift-wrapped
Graham Potter applauds at the final whistle
Fulham boss Marco Silva will lament his side’s sloppiest performance of the campaign. For large parts of this contest, they were in control. West Ham scored their opening two goals from their first two shots of the match. When Raul Jimenez struck the crossbar moments after Soucek’s strike, however, you sensed it would not be their night.
Potter knows his side will have to be better than this in the coming weeks with more London derbies on the horizon, but he will be delighted by how his players showed resolve in the eye of the visitor’s perseverance in search of a point.
Carlos Soler scored his first goal in the Premier League
Iwobi breathed life into their hopes when his cross evaded Jimenez to outfox Fabianski just six minutes into the restart. But Silva could not hide his despair at Leno’s uncharacteristic error which ultimately allowed the hosts to pull away.
Ings, a replacement for Mohamed Kudus, chased down a lost cause to pounce on the sleeping stopper and provide Paqueta with an unguarded net. Relief for West Ham, who held on despite Iwobi’s repeated trick of beating Fabianski from a cross.
Fulham were the architects of their own downfall, compounded by Traore’s yawning miss at the death, on a night Potter’s first win was gift-wrapped.
Fulham were the authors of their own downfall
Silva: Penalised by our own mistakes
Fulham boss Marco Silva:
“We are penalised by our own mistakes and it is clear it is our fault that we lost the game. We created enough chances to have been in front and West Ham weren’t going around our box at all.
“We made a mistake in our build-up and we felt that mistake to lead to the second. We lost the first duel and then the second. We lost our principle for a few minutes.
“They played almost the whole second half defensively but we then gave another goal. Raul and Adama had two big chances to equalise so it is clear the result didn’t reflect what happened on the pitch. But we cannot make it so easy for a team to punish us.”
