West Ham get first glimpse of exciting future as Graham Potter restores feel-good factor with huge win | OneFootball

The Hammers are up and running under their new manager

If this was a sign of things to come from West Ham then the ride could be a lot of fun with Graham Potter steering the ship.

Potter’s reign may have officially begun with defeat, in the FA Cup third round against Aston Villa on Friday, but this Tuesday night London derby against Fulham was always going to feel like the real lift-off moment, win, draw or lose.

If the Hammers came out all guns blazing at the start of Potter’s first game in charge at Villa Park on Friday, the way his players attacked the opening exchanges of his first home game marked a considerable downgrade. Fulham got on top of West Ham and under their skin, going close when Harry Wilson struck the bar inside five minutes and twice through Emile Smith Rowe.

The root of this was a slowness in midfield, an inability to get out to Fulham’s slick attackers quickly enough. Questions for Potter, who had selected what appeared an incredibly immobile midfield trio of Edson Alvarez, Guido Rodriguez and Soucek.

West Ham players celebrate scoring against Fulham.

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These were questions Potter and his team answered with gusto, and it didn’t take them long either. In the space of six first-half minutes, West Ham scored three times. The first, a Max Kilman header from Carlos Soler’s free-kick was rightly chalked off for a marginal offside, but then came two which did count, and both got the new manager off his feet, jumping for joy with fists clenched.

Andreas Pereira’s ‘housewarming’ gift to Potter was a far-too-generous pass rolled irresponsibly across his own goal without even looking. Soler said thanks a million and curled in his first goal for West Ham and the first goal at the London Stadium of Potter’s reign.

Then a well-worked second just a minute later, a goal reminiscent of Lucas Paqueta’s opener against Villa because again it came from Kilman’s long ball and involved a sweeping move in attack. Mohammed Kudus — brought off after 63 minutes largely quiet again — carried the ball and fed Soler, whose cross-field ball allowed the onrushing Aaron Wan-Bissaka to pull back for Soucek to finish.

Games against Fulham are never plain-sailing for anyway, least of all West Ham, who lost 2-0 in this fixture last season and 5-0 in a sobering return leg. Just as the Cottagers had the Hammers hemmed in at the beginning of the first half, so too the start of the second.

During that time came two of Fulham’s two goals on the night — both were uncannily similar, exposing the mammoth task that awaits Potter in operating open heart surgery on the division’s fourth-worst defence. For both goals, Alex Iwobi crossed, a Fulham player tried to get a touch and didn’t, yet Lukasz Fabianski was beaten anyway.

Thank goodness for the horrendous Leno dallying that saw Danny Ings tackle and Paqueta make it three. By the end of this barmy encounter, after Iwobi had again halved the deficit, they needed it.

Whatever the means, here were three huge points for Potter.