May the fourth be with you: Hammers dig deep to secure vital win

West Ham 3 Leicester City 2

When is this going to stop? I'd have taken a point from this game going into it without Rice and Antonio. But this West Ham squad seems to thrive on adversity. It helps that Maddison, Perez and Choudhury are absent from the Leicester squad after a Covid protocol breach. Bowen is certainly making a good job of winning fouls and playing the Antonio role.

After not having a shot on target in the first 25 minutes the Hammers take the lead just as my feed buffers. The replay shows it's yet another confident first-time voley strike from the edge of the box by Jesse Lingard. Nasuaku's cross has caused the initial problem and Coufal has then provided the assist. It gets better as Diop's long ball plays in Bowen who gets behind Fofana to spring the offside trap and cleverly square for Lingard to score into an open goal. We even manage to not concede before the break. 

Just as long as we don't go 3-0 up we'll be fine. Soon after the break we do though. Lingard is again involved, finding Soucek who squares for Bowen to poke home. A deserved goal for Jarrod in his unfamiliar role. Diop seems to have made it four from another Lingard cross only for the goal to be disallowed for offside.

But this being West Ham it gets jittery. With 20 minutes left Arthur Masuaku is caught in possession and Iheanacho turns to send a great finish into the corner. Cresswell goes off with a hamstring injury, forcing Masuaku to defend, which isn't his strong point, and The General to be called upon at centre back. The team spirit is epitomised by Fabianski's dive at the feet of Ricardo and Mark Noble making a vital block and injuring his arm in the process. 

It seems the Hammers have made it through, until Mike Dean adds six minutes of time. On 92 minutes Albrighton is allowed too much time to cross and Iheanacho bundles home a second. Leicester force endless corners and with Johnson and Benrahma on we're down to the bare bones. Credit to the likes of Soucek for some great late interventions. But once again we see the game out to go back to fourth. Always in doubt! Irons!

PLAYER RATINGS: Fabianski 7; Coufal 7, Diop 7, Dawson 7, Cresswell 6 (Balbuena 6), Masuaku 6; Lingard 9, Noble 7 (Johnson 5), Soucek 8, Fornals 7; Bowen 8 (Benrahma n/a).