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As one manager celebrated his first game in charge, another may have endured his last. Ruud Van Nistelrooy enjoyed a fortuitous but hard-earned victory as he could luxuriate in seeing Leicester move four points clear of the relegation zone but Julen Lopetegui must be fearing for the worst.
Having spent over £100m on new players in the summer, without seeing any marked improvement in the play or results of David Moyes’s team, the former Wolves manager might be relieved to still be in post by the time his previous club visit the London Stadium on Monday.
West Ham appear to be moving backwards. Reading other managers have been sounded out for your job can hardly be lifting morale.
Substitutes Patson Daka, slashing home from the left corner of the box, and Niclas Füllkrug traded goals in stoppage time. The grand entrance for Van Nistelrooy presaged the best of starts for his team. Only 98 seconds had elapsed when Jamie Vardy, after striding on to Bilal El Khannouss’s neat pass inside, calmly rolled the ball past Lukasz Fabianski and into the far bottom corner as the assistant referee’s flag was raised. But almost another two minutes went by before the VAR adjudged the striker had been onside. Cue the opportunity for Vardy to offer his best retort to visiting supporters who so like to goad him (and his wife). The Leicester captain went and dad-danced in front of the West Ham fans, his 100th Premier League goal involvement at the King Power Stadium offering his team a winning platform.
If this was a big night for Van Nistelrooy, it was huge for Julen Lopetegui. West Ham may have won at Newcastle last week – no mean feat – but their prior sequence of two wins from 10 matches had reports suggesting he had two games to save a job into which he only moved in May. And when his side went 4-0 down at home to Arsenal inside 36 minutes on Saturday evening, the spotlight immediately flashed back his way.
Waking up to more reports that Sérgio Conceiçao, the former Porto manager, had been sounded out about taking over, Lopetegui, the former Wolves and Spain manager, could have done without going behind so soon. But to his team’s credit, after Vardy almost scored again, West Ham dominated the rest of the half. They had eight very presentable chances before the interval, with Mads Hermansen saving three times from smart efforts from Jarrod Bowen.
The closest West Ham came to scoring in this period arrived when, from Bowen’s right-footed cross, Danny Ings saw his header deflect off James Justin and against the post.
Mohammed Kudus, back from his five-game suspension, was in spirited form, roaming across the line just behind Ings, dispatching one superb cross for Tomas Soucek to head into the side-netting. The net rippled; West Ham fans celebrated; Leicester’s mocked their false hope. But this game was still in the balance.
Lopetegui had cut a frustrated figure for much of the first half. Crysencio Summerville had been stripped off and ready to come on. It did seem somewhat strange that the West Ham manager had taken so long to opt for direct pace against a defensive couple of thirtysomethings – Conor Coady and Jannik Vestergaard – never renowned for their speed.
Bowen went down the middle. With Summerville attacking from the left, Kudus soon combined with Bowen to cross for Soucek to spoon a near-post effort over the crossbar.
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West Ham must have known their luck was out when, just before Leicester went two goals ahead, Soucek was even more unfortunate not to help his team back into the game. Summerville sliced the ball up into the air and Hermansen, jostled gently by the Czech Republic midfielder, fudged his punch before the ball went over the line. But Josh Smith, the referee, gave a foul.
Leicester had just topped up their pace quotas at opposite ends of the pitch – Wout Faes replacing Vestergaard, Patson Daka coming on for Vardy – when El Khannouss stretched out to reach Kasey McAteer’s pass in from the left and guided it into the bottom corner.
Leicester had done enough to give Van Nistelrooy his winning start, even if Coady was required to react brilliantly, reversing his momentum to toe-end Summerville’s effort off the line after Bowen’s great pullback.
Cries of “sacked in the morning” started from the West Ham corner of the ground even before the substitute Bobby De Cordova-Reid thought he had scored Leicester’s third, nine minutes from time, after Fabianski had saved a first effort. However, the VAR showed there was a fractional offside in the buildup.
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