West Ham falls to another home loss with 2-0 defeat to dominant Brentford in Premier League

LONDON (AP) — West Ham lost for the fourth home match in a row in the Premier League on Monday, with late goals in both halves giving Brentford a 2-0 win that could have been much bigger had the visitors taken more of their chances.

Going into the game, West Ham had lost all three of its home games this season while Brentford had lost all three of its away games in the league, but the visitors dominated from the start at the London Stadium.

Igor Thiago and Kevin Schade both missed good opportunities to score before Thiago finally broke the deadlock two minutes before halftime. The Hammers defense failed to deal with long ball and Schade squared to Thiago to score. Goalkeeper Alphonse Areola got a hand to his shot but could not stop it going over the line.

Some West Ham fans boycotted the game in protest at what they say is mismanagement by the club’s owners and there were more empty seats than usual at the former Olympic stadium, which became the club’s home in 2016 after moving from Upton Park.

They missed little as the home side was second best throughout against a team that had 22 shots on goal to West Ham’s seven.

Nevertheless, it took Brentford until the 94th minute to get a second goal. Another long ball flummoxed the West Ham defense and Keane Lewis-Potter cut back for Mathias Jensen to slam home.

“It probably could’ve been more,” Brentford midfielder Mikkel Damsgaard said. “We created a lot of chances and had a lot of set pieces, but we’re happy to get the three points.”

The result leaves Nuno Espirito Santos’ team in 19th place with four points from eight games and the worst goal difference in the league.

Brentford moved into 13th place with 10 points after eight games.

___

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer