LONDON (Reuters) -Brentford claimed their third straight Premier League victory when they came from behind to beat West Ham United 3-2 on Saturday in a thrilling London derby in which their club-record signing Nathan Collins scored the winner.
Victory moved Brentford up to ninth place with 16 points from 11 games as they slowly get their campaign back on track following a six-match winless run, while West Ham dropped to 11th, two points behind their London rivals.
Brentford also maintained their perfect record against West Ham with five Premier League wins and they are now unbeaten in their last 14 London derbies in the league.
“We’ve come here too often and I hate the feeling that we’re losing to Brentford every time. I’ve left pig-sick every time and I’m leaving again pig-sick,” West Ham boss David Moyes said.
Brentford’s Neal Maupay had been in rotten form with a goal drought lasting 14 months but the French forward repaid Thomas Frank’s faith by opening the scoring in the 11th minute, heading home after pouncing on Frank Onyeka’s miscued shot.
The lead lasted eight minutes until Michail Antonio crossed the ball into the box and midfielder Mohammed Kudus, with his back to goal, executed a perfect scissors kick to score.
Kudus nearly grabbed another goal minutes later when he saw his effort come off the post but Jarrod Bowen was on hand to clean up and make it 2-1 following a long VAR check for handball, the English midfielder scoring in his sixth consecutive away game.
West Ham could have easily made it 3-1 when Kudus and Bowen combined to break through Brentford’s defence but when Bowen played the ball to the far post Antonio got in Said Benrahma’s way and scuffed his effort wide.
As the heavens opened and the rain lashed down, Bryan Mbeumo led Brentford’s fightback, with the forward coming close to scoring from range on three occasions before halftime as West Ham held on to their slender lead.
The equaliser finally came 10 minutes into the second half when West Ham defender Konstantinos Mavropanos attempted to clear Mbeumo’s dangerous cross from a short corner only to see the ball fly into the top corner.
Collins, signed for a reported fee of 23 million pounds ($28.46 million), had forced the own goal and the defender was in the box again for another glorious Mathias Jensen cross to score with a towering header and seal the points.
“I didn’t like the goals we let in. They came from second-phase set pieces,” Moyes added. “The first part of them we’d dealt with and defended them, and then we didn’t defend the second part.”
($1 = 0.8080 pounds)
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris and Clare Fallon)
