Brentford 3 West Ham 0: Thiago scores 25th goal of the season in impressive Bees win
Brentford 3 West Ham 0: Thiago scores 25th goal of the season in impressive Bees win Igor Thiago scored his 25th goal of the season as Brentford beat West Ham United 3-0 at Gtech Community Stadium in the Premier League. A first-half Konstantinos Mavropanos own goal opened the scoring for the Bees, before Thiago's penalty and Mikkel Damsgaard's exquisite finish secured the three points for the hosts in Saturday's London derby. Keith Andrews named an unchanged starting XI for the fourth game running, with midfielder Vitaly Janelt on the bench and returning to a matchday squad for the first time since February.
Dango Ouattara had a good chance within the opening 30 seconds of the game, when two West Ham tackles ricocheted kindly back to the Bees. Ouattara picked up the loose ball and fired a shot from the edge of the area towards the far post, but it whistled just wide. West Ham went close to the opener seven minutes in, when Sepp van den Berg let the ball run past him, only for Pablo to intercept and charge in on goal.
The Dutch defender did well to recover, putting off the Hammers forward as he managed to get a shot towards goal, which Caoimhín Kelleher parried away. The hosts took the lead on 15 minutes after some brilliant play from Keane Lewis-Potter on the left wing. The former Hull City man beat his old team-mate Jarrod Bowen before whipping a superb ball to the far post.
Michael Kayode charged in to meet it and, after the ball struck the post and rebounded back towards the right-back, Mavropanos was forced to turn it into his own net. The Hammers hit the post almost immediately after the kick-off. A cross from El Hadji Malick Diouf was controlled well by Taty Castellanos, who wriggled into some space and bent a side-footed effort towards the corner, which clipped the outside of the woodwork.
And they thought they had equalised on 21 minutes, when Mavropanos headed in from inside the six-yard box. A cross was played towards the far side of the box and was met by the centre-back, but he had mistimed his run and VAR ruled the goal out for offside. An action-packed start continued when Mikkel Damsgaard was left wondering how he hadn't made it 2-0.
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