Hammers come from behind to beat Fulham

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West Ham 3 Fulham 1

Two contentious decisions played a part in ensuring a Fulham side who were without talisman Aleksandar Mitrovic due to injury left West Ham empty handed.

Andreas Pereira had put Fulham ahead early on with a wonderful finish before a questionable penalty call from referee Chris Kavanagh gave Jarrod Bowen an equaliser before half-time.

Gianluca Scamacca’s second-half strike survived two VAR checks – one for offside and another for handball – before Michail Antonio secured the points late on with a third West Ham goal.

Fulham took the lead on five minutes when a quick counter-attack saw Neeskens Kebano feed through Pereira, who fired a superb finish beyond Lukasz Fabianski from a tight angle.

And Marco Silva’s side almost had a second ten minutes later when some patient build-up play resulted in Dan James curling an effort off the bar from outside the box.

But West Ham were level on 29 minutes when Kavanagh awarded the home side a penalty for a foul at a corner-kick on Craig Dawson by Pereira, from which Bowen converted.

West Ham then took the lead in the second half through Scamacca, who latched onto Lucas Paqueta’s through pass to dink the ball over Bernd Leno.

The goal was first checked for offside and then for a potential handball from Scamacca, with a livid Marco Silva receiving a yellow card for his protests at allowing the goal to stand.

And West Ham sealed the win late on when substitute Antonio raced through on goal and, after being denied at the first time of asking by Leno, regained possession when Tim Ream failed to clear before slotting into an empty net.

Fulham: Leno, De Cordova-Reid, Tosin, Ream, Robinson, Palhinha, Reed (Cairney 70’), James (Wilson 77’), Pereira (Onomah 77’), Kebano (Duffy 89’), Vinicius