There's only one F in Fulham

West Ham 0 Fulham 2

The best result of the day is giving four signed copies of Massive to Pete from Philosophy Football at Hackney Wick station. He's a man who has played both walking and three-sided football, a sport where you can lose to two sides, an idea that might interest West Ham. Inside the stadium I'm joined by Michael, Lisa, Nigel and Carolyn, while Fraser and Matt are across the park in the cold shadows of the West Stand. 

West Ham have a good eight minutes. Coufal bursts through to fire at Leno and Antonio blasts the rebound wastefully over the bar. Kudus shoots wide and Paqueta hits the side-netting. But Fulham score with their first attack after nine minutes. Dinos Mavropanos does one of his long leg stretches to try and control the ball, but only plays it straight to Pereira, who scores with ease.

That goal deflates both team and crowd. Fulham create a host of chances with Willian crossing for Pereira to shoot wide, Fabianski saving well from Willian and Iwobi shooting wide. Even the applause for the tenth anniversary of Dylan Tombides' death from testicular cancer in the 38th minute sees a header gathered on the line by Fabianski.

West Ham look very jaded after playing in Germany on Thursday. Playing Ings up front with Antonio in a wider role isn't working. Paqueta is having a game where nothing comes off, Alvarez is off the pace, Ward-Prowse is struggling to contain Pereira and Mavropanos has made one of those mistakes that still blight the game of a promising player. 

At half-time Nigel takes a unilateral decision to eat his lucky banana. It doesn't work. The second half sees more Fulham chances, as Muniz tries a clever backheel and Fabianski makes a brilliant low stop to deny the lively Iwobi. 

Sub Soucek adds a little more bite to the West Ham midfield and Paqueta has a header blocked from a corner, before Ings fires way over. But a second goal seems inevitable. It comes when Paqueta tries to beat three players, gets tackled and Iwobi breaks. He crosses for Pereira to stroke home, having lost Ben Johnson.

George Earthy comes on for his league debut and has a couple of good touches, before he collides with Alvarez and goes down with a nasty head injury. He's down for a long time and is stretchered off and taken to hospital, as the Fulham fans show a lack of class by chanting while he's down. Earthy has thankfully now been sent home. 

The inevitable defeat happens and the only good result is we try a new rout to the Eagle via Stratford International, which is a Dave Brailsford-style marginal gain. Here we meet Matt and Fraser, though the bad news is that the fridge is out of East London Pale Ale and it's down to John Smiths or Guinness. A discussion ensues about the last band to play live on Top of the Pops, with Nigel saying he can't explain if it was the Who or not, while Lisa is making her mind up about Bucks Fizz. Matt enjoys himself by asking us to name all the winners of the Bundesliga, which we can't.

This defeat has been easier to take in some ways, as we never looked like winning after the first goal. At least we get to watch Arsenal blow their chance of going top against Aston Villa and learn that Bayer Leverkusen have scraped a 5-0 win to win the Bundesliga. Let's hope they behave thoroughly unprofessionally and go out on the lash all week. A chastening home defeat when we could have gone sixth. Whether Moyes stays or goes, the need for a bigger squad is clear.

PLAYER RATINGS: Fabianski 7; Coufal 6 (Johnson 5), Mavropanos 4 (Zouma 6), Aguerd 5, Emerson 5; Alvarez 5, Ward-Prowse 4 (Soucek 6), Paqueta 5; Kudus 6, Ings 4, Antonio 6 (Earthy n/a, Cornet n/a).