Given their inability to win a knockout tie in normal time, there can be little doubt of the physical impediment that West Ham’s continued prolonged endeavours in this season’s FA Cup must make to their efforts of remaining in the Premier League. But, with an eminently winnable home quarter-final against Leeds United now upcoming, the chance of a rare trip to Wembley is the type of happy distraction any relegation-threatened side can embrace.
For the third time in three FA Cup ties, the conventional 90 minutes were insufficient for Nuno Espírito Santo’s team to find a winner, with two goals apiece for Jarrod Bowen and Igor Thiago cancelling each other out.
Unlike the previous two occasions, they could not even settle this one in extra time, requiring a penalty shootout to see off Brentford. After Dango Ouattara missed his embarrassingly weak Panenka, Konstantinos Mavropanos eventually stepped up and rifled home for a 5-3 spot-kick triumph.
For rather different reasons, both sides could have been forgiven for focusing their efforts on their respective league endeavours, but a difference of approach appeared evident in their selected firepower for this Cup encounter.
Despite pushing for a first European campaign in Brentford’s history, via their league placing, Keith Andrews fielded close to the strongest team at his disposal. By contrast, most of West Ham’s leading lights began the evening in the London Stadium dugout as Nuno understandably opted to prioritise top-flight survival over knockout jeopardy. He had taken a similar approach in the previous round against lowly Burton Albion, only to call his heavy artillery off the bench to squeak past the League One club in extra time.
