West Ham United 1-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers
Premier League, London Stadium, Sunday 27 February 2022
Tomáš Souček celebrated his 27th birthday by shooting West Ham United to a 1-0 Premier League victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The Czech Republic international was in the right place at the right time to prod Michail Antonio’s cross past José Sá 59 minutes into a game the Hammers dominated and should arguably have won by a more comfortable margin.
As it was, David Moyes will settle for a single-goal victory that extends West Ham’s unbeaten run to five matches and took his team onto 45 points – level with Arsenal and just two behind Manchester United – and back up into fifth place.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, West Ham’s players showed solidarity with Andriy Yarmolenko before kick-off, wearing t-shirts bearing his No7 before captain Declan Rice carried the forward’s shirt out ahead of kick-off – a gesture which was widely appreciated by the Claret and Blue Army.
When the teams broke away, the Hammers lined up in in a 5-3-2 formation, matching up their opponents, with Aaron Cresswell playing as the left centre-back and Ben Johnson and Pablo Fornals filling the wing-back positions.
The tactic paid dividends in the opening half, as the home side dominated for long periods and restricted their opponents to just two goal attempts – Hwang Hee-Chan seeing one shot blocked and another curl wide at either end of the period – while creating eight of their own.
Indeed, aside from seeing the South Korean fire wastefully off-target in added-time, David Moyes’ team looked by far the more likely scorers, only for José Sá and the frame of the Wolves goal to deny them.
After Cresswell had curled a 25-yard free-kick narrowly wide, Antonio went even closer to opening the deadlock on the half-hour mark, but the No9 was denied his first goal since New Year’s Day by Sá’s flying save. Rice then rattled the post with a curling long-range strike that had the giant Portuguese goalkeeper beaten eight minutes later.
In between, Kurt Zouma also flicked a backheeled volley over from birthday boy Tomáš Souček’s header and the ever-available Manuel Lanzini curled his shot into the Wolves’ No1’s gloves, while the sliding Argentinian also hit the side-netting from Antonio’s looping cross as half-time approached.
The second period started out cagily, with neither side generating much in the way of tempo for seven or eight minutes, then Barcelona loanee Francisco Trincão and Rice took turns to bend shots a couple of yards off-target at each end.
And then, on 59 minutes, almost out of nothing, West Ham scored.
Fornals won a throw in, Cresswell took it, Fornals and Antonio combined and the latter squared for Souček to expertly twist and poke low past Sá’s left hand and into the Wolves net.
Lage immediately called upon Daniel Podence from the bench and it two fine interventions in quick succession from Zouma to deny Fábio Silva, who then lashed a rising effort high and wide.
With the game opening up, West Ham also had chances, with Sá denying Bowen with his legs and Fornals blasting the follow-up wide.
Into the final 20 minutes and Antonio then raced from halfway past two Wolves defenders but opted to pass rather than shoot with only Sá to beat, leaving Moyes with his head in his hands.
Lage then threw on Pedro Neto and Raul Jimenez in search of a late leveller, and it nearly came courtesy of Rúben Neves, but Łukasz Fabiański held onto his piledriver to ensure his side would not only keep a clean sheet, but secure a welcome Premier League victory over one of their closest rivals.
West Ham United: Fabiański, Johnson, Dawson, Zouma, Cresswell, Rice ©, Souček, Lanzini, Fornals (Diop 90+3), Bowen, Antonio (Vlašić 90+1)
Subs not used: Areola (GK), Alese, Noble, Král, Benrahma, Okoflex, Perkins
Booked: Antonio
Wolverhampton Wanderers: Sá, Kilman, Coady (c), Saïss, Hoever, Dendoncker, Neves, Marçal (Neto 76), Trincão (Podence 60), Fábio Silva, Hwang (Jiménez 81)
Subs not used: Ruddy (GK), Aït-Nouri, Jonny, Boly, Moutinho, Cundle
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Attendance: 59,946