The moment when West Ham really felt their survival bid pick up pace was when the jab from Taty Castellanos rolled beyond the reach of José Sá and crawled towards the Wolves goal.
Two-nil up in a must-win game, Nuno Espírito Santo’s side looked unrecognisable from the doomed bunch who dropped seven points off 17th place in early January. This is a different West Ham. This is a West Ham with a punch in attack and, if this daring escape act does end with Premier League football secured for another season, a key part of the story will be how Nuno strengthened his squad in January .
While Axel Disasi has brought order in defence, the best way to compliment Castellanos and Pablo Felipe is to call them the modern equivalent of John Hartson and Paul Kitson.
West Ham, after all, have form in this department. They were fired to safety in 1997 after signing Hartson and Kitson halfway through a difficult campaign and, 29 years on, have given themselves a fighting chance thanks to the mid-season arrivals of Pablo and Castellanos.
They are a messy but effective duo. Pablo is yet to open his account since joining from Gil Vicente but he offers work rate and also provided a flash of quality in this thrashing of Wolves, whose hopes of recovering from a goal down ended when the 22-year-old striker’s brilliant flick sent Castellanos through to make it 2-0 by squeezing perhaps the slowest shot of his career past Sá in the 66th minute.
It was Castellanos’s fourth goal since joining from Lazio, and he had another 66 seconds later. Wolves, bottom of the league, folded. They had no response when Jarrod Bowen and Crysencio Summerville raised the tempo on the flanks. As their resistance faded, they were unable to stop Konstantinos Mavropanos scoring a fourth as West Ham rejoiced in plunging Tottenham into the bottom three for the first time this season.
The hours will go slowly for Tottenham before they start the Roberto De Zerbi era with a trip to Sunderland on Sunday. Dare they glance at the table? West Ham have only lost three of their last 11 games and, as well as spooking Tottenham, have also gone level with Nottingham Forest and a point off Leeds.
It is tight. Forest host Villa this weekend and Leeds visit Manchester United on Monday. West Ham can only focus on themselves. They have dug deep after an awful start to the season and are finding unlikely heroes in this nail-biting relegation battle.
Mavropanos, once maligned for his clumsy defending, kickstarted this triumph with a thumping header and later rounded it off with an acrobatic volley.
“Nobody knew,” Nuno said when he was asked about the Greece centre-back, who also scored in last month’s draw with Manchester City, turning into a goal machine.
Nuno was typically circumspect after beating his old side. “It doesn’t change anything,” he said. “Next week we play after our opponents. Today we did the job.”
With some difficulty, it must be said. Nuno was not happy with West Ham’s level during the first half.
He admitted they were lucky to lead when Bowen crossed for Mavropanos to head past Sá in the 42nd minute.
Rob Edwards agreed. The Wolves manager liked his side’s brisk start. He was unhappier with their response to going behind and also pointed out that the corner that led to the opener should have been a Wolves goal-kick.
This was not about the officials, though. Adam Armstrong had a couple of chances for Wolves and Angel Gomes struck a post at 1-0 but the visitors were toothless and failed to punish West Ham’s initial angst.
The importance of winning this game was heightened by the difficulty of West Ham’s run before they host Leeds on the final day.
The pressure did funny things to their decision-making at first, Bowen and Summerville snatching at chances. Wolves already had two wins over West Ham this season. The potential for another slip weighed on the hosts.
West Ham held their nerve, though. Bowen, who rattled the woodwork early in the second half, improved as the game wore on. Summerville, back from a calf injury, stirred on the left.
He was involved in the second goal, winning possession. Castellanos played a one-two with Pablo and, holding off a challenge, somehow got the ball past Sá.
Wolves slumped and conceded a third from their own kick-off, Bowen stepping in and feeding Castellanos, whose shot went in thanks to a deflection off André. West Ham did not look like relegation candidates.
Leave a Reply