West Ham suffer an infuriating 4-3 defeat at St James Park following Newcastle’s comeback.

West Ham’s inability to capitalise on their brilliant position to secure European football again is something we’ve seen over and over this season. West Ham really should be comfortably ahead of the rest of the pack by now given how the table looked ahead of the new year, but that’s not been the case. Time and time again they’ve thrown away points, and today’s defeat to Newcastle is no different.

Things got off to an incredibly bad start for the Hammers, as Vladimir Coufal’s awful challenge on Anthony Gordon resulted in a penalty for the hosts, despite a lengthy VAR check, which Isak slotted into the bottom left corner. However, West Ham grew into the game and the momentum shifted once Lascelles went off injured. Shortly after the 20th minute mark, Antonio got on the end of a brilliant chipped through ball from Lucas Paqueta to bring the Hammers level. 

The game was extremely end to end but, just before half-time, Paqueta and Bowen linked up from a quick free-kick, before passing to Kudus to give the Irons the advantage heading into the break. West Ham came out of the tunnel all guns blazing and a world-class run and pass from Kudus allowed Bowen to extend their lead to two just three minutes after the second-half kicked off.

Unfortunately, this is where the positives ended. Newcastle were forced to use all of their substitutes through injuries, but it was a change from West Ham that made the difference. Not that it is entirely his fault, but when Kalvin Phillips came on the game completely shifted. Newcastle dominated the ball and had chance after chance. The English midfielder gave away a penalty which, in fairness, was a baffling decision from the officials. Isak once again converted from the spot.

As we have seen countless times before, the pressure became too much for David Moyes’ side and substitute Harvey Barnes equalised in the 83rd minute. He went on to score a 90th minute winner with an unbelievable strike from distance.

Poor officiating, a lack of intensity from the players and woeful in-game management all contributed to the loss. The game was firmly in West Ham’s hands but they couldn’t capitalise on the opportunity. Three massive points dropped and with only 2 wins in their last 11 Premier League games it is becoming hard to imagine them finding enough points over an incredibly tough run of games to secure European football again – especially when they could drop as low as 11th place if the teams below them win their games in hand.