Divine Mukasa scored the only goal of the game as West Ham United beat Swansea City in a top of the table Championship clash in South Wales.

Judging by the reaction in some quarters, though, you’d have been forgiven for assuming that the Hammers had fallen short in their pursuit of a statement win away to the league leaders.

In a sense, we can understand the concern. West Ham were largely dreadful in the 1-1 draw with QPR a week-and-a-half ago. And though the 6-0 battering of Lincoln City was their biggest since 1923 on the road, the Londoners were fairly abysmal up against nine men until Konstantinos Mavropanos spared their blushes before the break.

Yet, to criticise the manager’s tactics and team selection – on a day when Nuno made some ‘very smart’ changes and was rewarded with three points – feels like criticism for criticism’s sake.

West Ham United’s attack had an off-day but they’re definitely not ‘toothless’

West Ham were clearly set up to frustrate Swansea and limit the home side’s high-press. In fact, the visitors would beat the hosts at their own game. Swansea are formidable pressers, a side often force the opposition into mistakes inside their own half before taking advantage in the most brutal fashion.

It was their turn to be on the receiving end on Saturday though; Pablo snatching the ball off Marko Stamenic before Kante crossed for Mukasa to convert just ten seconds later.

Yes, chances were at a premium. Yes, West Ham registered an XG of just 0.9 from open play. Yet, when you are restricting Swansea to an open play XG of 0.17 as well as zero shots on target, one single goal is often enough to bring home the win.

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gahorsnell

I think the ‘toothless’ criticism is missplaced. WE scored the crucial goal in a difficut game, and a team that is sitting on 30 goals after 11 games haa enough teeth by my reckoning.

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“It was a very, very good performance,” Nuno beamed. “After recovering the ball with a good press [for Mukasa’s winner], it was a good combination and criteria to decide the final pass.

“We had chances in similar situations in the second half with multiple situations, but credit to the [Swansea] goalkeeper. He made incredible saves. But look, the commitment, the team spirit in the end to hold on to the result is really positive for us.”

And lest we forget, West Ham have scored a staggering 30 goals from 11 Championship matches. Eight more than the next best, third-place Middlesbrough. West Ham were level with Barcelona as the joint-most prolific side in Europe’s top ten leagues for a few September days, too.

This is the first season in recorded history in which the club have won by a six-goal margin on two occasions, and there are still Halloween masks on the supermarket shelves. If you were to extrapolate their current average of 2.7 goals across an entire 46-game campaign, West Ham would have a formidable 125 by the end of May.

Yes, Pablo, Taty Castellanos and Joel Piroe have had off-days. Ditto Manor Solomon. But no team spreads the goals around quite like West Ham. Tomas Soucek, Mohamadou Kante, Divine Mukasa, Edvin Austbo and particularly Konstantinos Mavropanos are always good for one, meaning there are still plenty of attacking threats even when the centre-forwards are not firing.

Only three teams in history of the second-tier, meanwhile, have reached triple figures in a single campaign. Bolton Wanderers [100 goals, 96/97], Fulham [106 goals, 21/22] and the free-scoring Manchester City side coached by the legendary Kevin Keegan in 2001/02. Man City scored 108 times en route to the Championship title 24 years ago.

When you consider that West Ham are on track to obliterate that record by no fewer than seventeen goals, criticising one below-par attacking performance – in a game they won away to the league leaders anyway – seems pretty unwarranted.