It was another sorry Stratford Saturday afternoon of toil and trouble for West Ham United as they slumped to a fourth successive home defeat at London Stadium.
While in-form Crystal Palace extended their unbeaten run in all competitions to 17 matches, a fifth reversal of the season piled the pressure on Hammers head coach, Graham Potter, just half a dozen games into the 2025/26 campaign.
Although Jarrod Bowen wiped out Jean-Philippe Mateta’s first-half opener just after the interval, Tyrick Mitchell then secured a 2-1 victory for the high-flying Eagles with 20 minutes remaining.
Add in a pre-match fan protest against the club’s beleaguered board plus media speculation that any one of Nuno Espirito Santo, former players Slaven Bilić and Gary O’Neil and even Sean Dyche are reportedly waiting in the wings to move into the Hammers hotseat, and it all made for another wretched weekend down West Ham way.
"It’s tough at the moment," conceded Potter, whose side sit perilously in 19th spot ahead of tricky trips to Everton and Arsenal.
"Results aren’t good and we’ve got to front it up and do better because the only way out of this is to put in more hard work on the training ground."
Following last week’s dismal defeat against Tottenham Hotspur (0-3), he made two changes, handing the gloves to Alphonse Areola as under-fire, summer-signing Mads Hermansen dropped to the bench, while Callum Wilson also came in for the suspended Tomás Soucek.
With the Hammers failing to trouble Palace stopper Dean Henderson throughout the opening period, Mateta nodded Palace into a 38th-minute lead after Marc Guehi’s header rebounded off the crossbar following Daichi Kamada’s inswinging corner.
Incredibly, it proved to be the seventh time that West Ham have carelessly conceded from a flag-kick this season.
"We’d started the first-half well before getting destabilised," observed Potter, who also saw Maxence Lacroix nod onto the woodwork seconds after the interval before Bowen glanced home El Hadji Malick Diouf’s 49th-minute corner.
"We tried to fix things at half-time and were better in the second-half after getting a good response through Jarrod’s goal."
Certainly, the skipper’s equaliser gave Hammers hope with Kyle Walker-Peters, James Ward-Prowse and Lucas Paquetá all then going close only for Mitchell to snatch victory with a well-executed, 68th-minute volley.
"Their second goal knocked the stuffing out of us and I’m disappointed for both the players and the supporters," admitted Potter, who now finds the noise surrounding his future growing louder by the day.
"Sure, results like this put the pressure on but I’ve got no reason not to think that I’ve got support from the board and I’ve got no complaints with the way I’ve been treated since I arrived here.
"I get the frustration around the place and people are obviously entitled to their opinion.
"I also understand the climate, the expectation and the environment.
"We’re going through a tough moment and we’ve got to stick together, find the solutions and be better for the experience," concluded Potter, who can only hope that he will still be at the Hammers helm against David Moyes’ Everton next Monday (September 29 – 8pm).
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