Report and free highlights as Tomas Soucek, Said Benrahma, Mark Noble and Nikola Vlasic give West Ham a deserved 4-1 win at Watford to move fifth in the Premier League; Hornets struggle after Emmanuel Dennis' third-minute opener gives them perfect start
Wednesday 29 December 2021 06:04, UK
West Ham bounced back from Emmanuel Dennis' third-minute opener to ease to a dominant 4-1 win at Watford and cut the gap to the top four to four points.
Dennis' self-made stunner (4) - his eighth goal of the season - appeared to answer any questions over whether the Hornets would be rusty in their first game for 18 days. But the bright performance the goal encouraged never materialised and the Hammers were soon in full control to raise the pressure on Claudio Ranieri, whose side have now lost their last five games.
Said Benrahma's warning shot against the woodwork served as anything but as the home side hung on against mounting West Ham pressure, but eventually their defences were finally breached as Tomas Soucek fired in Jarrod Bowen's slide-rule pass to level (27).
Less than two and a half minutes after they had led, Watford were behind. Michail Antonio's run to the byline gave him time to look up and find Benrahma, who went one better from his earlier effort and beat Daniel Bachmann courtesy of a kind nick off Adam Masina (29).
Only a generous VAR decision stopped Watford falling further behind three minutes into the second half when Soucek was penalised for a soft foul several seconds before adding what he thought was West Ham's third.
Another decision from the video assistant made amends for the visitors as Bachmann was judged to have fouled Bowen in the box, and captain Mark Noble sealed victory from 12 yards (58) before Nikola Vlasic rounded off a superb afternoon for the Hammers in added time with a simple finish (90+4).
Watford remain outside the bottom three but they have not picked up a single point since costing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer his job against Manchester United on November 20, while West Ham jump above Tottenham into fifth, four points off Arsenal in the final Champions League spot.
Bright moments have been few and far between for Watford of late, with four successive defeats evaporating much of the early optimism around Ranieri's appointment.
However, even with almost three weeks since their last game they burst into life against the Hammers, with Dennis - so many times their saviour - again the architect. He did well to engineer space against a sluggish Craig Dawson on the edge of the West Ham box, before beating Fabianski with a fine finish into the top corner.
The Hammers showed no ill effects of that early setback and were soon on the offensive, with a number of well-timed last-ditch blocks from Craig Cathcart the only barrier denying them a rapid comeback.
The hosts should have taken heed as the visitors' pressure ramped up. Benrahma waltzed in off the left and, unchallenged, smacked the goalframe from 20 yards. If not that, then West Ham's dominance in midfield against an ageing Juraj Kucka should have caused more concern.
With neither warning shot addressed, Soucek's route to goal for West Ham's equaliser was simple enough - he strode forward unmarked to latch onto Bowen's ball in behind, and with Cathcart slow to react, had a simple finish to fire past Bachmann.
As poor as that was, West Ham's quickfire second was worse. Watford appeared punch drunk as their joy turned to despair inside three minutes, with Antonio allowed down the outside of Kiko Femenia into the area before finding Benrahma, and a touch of fortune taking his effort past Bachmann courtesy of Masina's deflection.
The Hornets finally recovered to stem the tide before half-time, but having pieced their game plan back together it took less than three minutes of the second half to seemingly unravel again. Another Cathcart intervention ensured a touch on Soucek's cross but this time took it into the path of Bowen who bundled over the line from four yards. If that was unfortunate, the VAR decision to overturn the goal for a minor foul around 10 seconds before it was scored appeared more generous.
David Moyes later declared himself "amazed" by that decision - but he had fewer grievances about VAR's next intervention. Kucka's attempted chest back to Bachmann ended up falling short and when Bowen was taken out by the goalkeeper when beating him to the ball.
Referee Darren England initially pointed for a corner kick, but after viewing a video replay on the VAR monitor, he had little hesitation in overturning that decision, allowing Noble to send Bachmann the wrong way from 12 yards.
Watford looked to make a game of it late on but their chances owed as much to individual instances of complacency slipping into West Ham's performance than their own good work, and from one particularly lax piece of Hammers defending Joao Pedro was denied by a sprawling Fabianski.
Defensive mishaps were to remain more of a speciality for the hosts, though, and in added time allowed the visitors to seal a fine afternoon as Bowen worked his way past Francisco Sierralta with ease and pulled the ball back for Vlasic to fire into an empty net.
That manner of defeat, as much as the loss itself, will raise questions about whether Watford's trigger-happy owners may be tempted into a second managerial change of the season - the Hornets remain two points above the bottom three, but 18th-placed Burnley have two games in hand.
At the very least, back-to-back games with Newcastle and Norwich in January may go a long way towards defining the Hornets' season, regardless of who sits in the dugout.
Watford head coach Claudio Ranieri: "At the end of the match, we should have had more goals than West Ham, but they scored and we didn't. We must help each other to find the right solution individually and also as a team. It's not possible to continue this way.
"Sooner or later we'll score goals, but we need to stop conceding goals.
"I don't want to make excuses, but when you have the players for one day to prepare, it's not easy as a mentality to get everyone to the same level. It's a tough moment, not only for the moment but for the whole world. We have to improve ourselves, and we must do that without conceding goals. That's the problem."
West Ham manager David Moyes: "I'm demanding high levels of our players and I want that to show in how we play.
"We did it today in our goals, our play can be better and has been better, but we've got a toughness about us and today the biggest thing for me was to play a game 48 hours after the last one, be ready to go again and score four goals away from home.
"Watford have had Covid but they've had a period to recover too. A lot of teams would love a couple of weeks off, you wouldn't want Covid, but it's a chance to spread your games out."
Watford see in 2022 by welcoming Tottenham to Vicarage Road on New Year's Day; Kick-off at 3pm.
Later that afternoon, West Ham travel to Crystal Palace in a London derby, live on Sky Sports Premier League from 5pm; Kick-off at 5.30pm.
