On the shortest day of the year, a game that burst only briefly into life. In the space of seven second-half minutes, from nothing and nowhere, things started to happen. Brighton took the lead. West Ham equalised. And then things stopped happening again.
There were, to be fair, some rousing moments in the closing stages. Crysencio Summerville, a second-half substitute, robbed the ball off Jan Paul van Hecke and sprinted towards the area, but his shot was blocked; Yankuba Minteh, another, was played through on the right and eventually slid the ball across goal where Vladimir Coufal, a third, running back to defend his goal, deflected it into the foot of the far post. And finally, in the fourth minute of stoppage time and with Brighton finishing strongly, Evan Ferguson, a fourth, set up Yasin Ayari, a fifth, for a shot that was well saved. But the primary impression will be of two teams that started a hectic rush of festive fixtures as if their primary motivation was to preserve energy for the other ones.
In a sleepy opening half-hour such goal threat as there was came from a brace of far-post left-foot volleys, Emerson for West Ham sending Jarrod Bowen’s corner into the thicket of players that stood between him and goal, and Lukasz Fabianski’s positioning allowing him to deal comfortably with Kaoru Mitoma’s effort from Joao Pedro’s chipped cross.
Throughout the first half the creators of those chances were the only players who looked at all inclined to shock the game into life, with Bowen unique in also looking able. Both players ran at defenders, forced them to commit, caused moments of panic and confusion, but the Brazilian’s habit was to keep the ball until the confusion spread also to himself. In the 29th minute he took on Lucas Paquetá on the left wing, beat him comprehensively, ran into the penalty area and just kept going until a defender – Bowen, as it happened – intervened. Then four minutes later, with defenders on both sides, he went down inside the penalty area in search of a penalty, and while boos rang out West Ham broke and Bowen delivered a low cross that deflected off Lewis Dunk’s ankle and rolled just wide.
On this darkest of days Niclas Füllkrug emerged from perhaps the bleakest period of his career, belatedly making his first league start four months, one troublesome hamstring injury and what he this week described as “a catastrophic phase” after his £27m summer signing from Borussia Dortmund. The good news is that it would be hard to describe his debut performance as disappointing. The bad news is that it would be equally hard to describe his almost completely featureless display as anything else. It ended in the 57th minute when he was replaced by Summerville, and within a matter of seconds West Ham scored.
Brighton had taken the lead in the 51st minute when Pervis Estupiñán’s long cross from the left tempted Fabianski off his line only for Dunk to win it cleanly. He nodded the ball down to Mats Wieffer, who sidefooted calmly into the near corner. Seven minutes later the home side equalised after Bowen was played through from the halfway line, toyed with Dunk and the returning Joel Veltman and shot from just inside the area. Bart Verbruggen pushed it away from goal but towards the head of Mohammed Kudus, who sent it straight back past him.
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Brajan Gruda, Brighton’s summer arrival from Germany and also making his full league debut, was only marginally more eye-catching than Füllkrug as Brighton endured a fifth game without a win, while West Ham extended their own listless run. A change of fortunes will be high on both teams’ Christmas lists, but this was just listless.
Source: theguardian.com
