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West Ham United made certain to close their January in equally horrid fashion as they did in their FA Cup defeat to AFC Wimbledon over the weekend, as they were thrashed Tuesday evening by Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-0 at Molineux.
For the second consecutive match, manager Manuel Pellegrini will have questions about his side’s effort, let alone the performance, as they suffered the season sweep at the hands of Nuno Santo’s richly talented promoted side.
The Hammers started the match off even in the first eight minutes, and then everything turned awful for them. Another terrific night from Lukasz Fabianski and the crossbar prevented Raul Jimenez from scoring in the first half. But the Mexican international proved he is the best out and out forward from the land of El Tri at the moment in the second 45’, while his countryman Javier Hernandez could only have a quiet substitute appearance.
Romain Saiss was the one, however, to break the deadlock in the match in the 66th minute with a free header. And that began a miserable last 24 minutes of the match for West Ham, as Jimenez added a brace. The former Club America and Atletico Madrid forward got just across Declan Rice to cleverly finish in the 80th minute, then continued his impressive debut season in England six minutes later with a simple breakaway finish over an onrushing Fabianski to seal another impressive win for Santo’s side.
The miserable evening up north for the Hammers also included the returning Marko Arnautovic leaving the game in the 72nd minute after Saiss’s goal, with what appears to be a serious right knee injury. How West Ham would it be for the enigmatic Austrian, after his transfer saga just concluded, to possibly be out for the rest of the season with a very concerning injury.
Whether that is the case or not for Pellegrini, the Chilean will demand that his side immediately stop resembling the team that was miserable to begin the season, and play more like the formidable squad West Ham were in December. We’ll see if that is the case this coming weekend to begin the month of February, when the Hammers face off against the Premier League leaders Liverpool, of all opponents not to face when you are in a bad run of form, at home on Monday.