Compliments mean little to West Ham at this stage of the season. They need points more than a patronising pat on the head for playing quite well in a defeat. Positives? West Ham hit the woodwork three times, created a host of chances and contributed to an entertaining game. Negatives? Well, all of that would have been fine if they were coasting in mid-table, but given West Ham’s perilous position the overriding sense was this was a costly afternoon in their battle to stay up.
The frustration lay in blowing an opportunity to make 18th-placed Tottenham squirm before facing Aston Villa on Sunday evening. The gap remains at two points when it could have been five.
“I cannot do anything,” Nuno Espírito Santo said, knowing he will be powerless to do anything more than hope for a favour when he tunes into the action from Villa Park and watches Tottenham chase the win that would push West Ham back into the bottom three with three games left.
Nuno is trying to transmit calm. He was happy with elements of West Ham’s performance against high-flying Brentford, but was worried about their reaction to Igor Thiago making it 2-0 with a penalty early in the second half. “The second goal hurt us,” Nuno said. “We lost composure.”
