Hammers slump at Burnley

Burnley 2 West Ham 0

Meet the new West Ham — same as the old West Ham. A trip to Lancashire proved a game too far for the injury-hit Hammers with a desperate Burnley out-fighting the Irons and achieving a deserved win with goals from Wood and McNeil. It could have been more for the home side and the only bright moment for the Hammers was an Andy Carroll header that Heaton (replacing the dropped Joe Hart) tipped on to the bar. Clearly that fine win at Southampton took a lot out of the players, while Burnley had had an extra day to recover since losing 5-1 at home to Everton.

Marko Arnautovic returned after a month out but is going to need games to regain his sharpness, while Anderson still struggles with the English fixture overload. This was a game where we missed the steadying influence of Zabaleta and Balbuena at the back, though at least we got to see a bit of Silva as a sub.

Not the end to the year we wanted and the chance to go seventh has been lost. But overall five wins out of seven is a good run. This was a very bad day at the office with the side looking jaded. Now it's time for one more big push against Brighton in three days time and then ten days break, bar the FA Cup tie with Birmingham, before the next league match. By then some injured players might have returned and some signings been made.