West Ham United suffered an embarrassing 3-0 defeat to Brighton and Hove Albion on Friday night.
Slaven Bilic
West Ham fans have, unsurprisingly, quickly taken to Twitter to vent their anger and frustration after watching Slaven Bilic’s men slump to a 3-0 defeat at home to Brighton on Friday – but one player appears to have avoided much of the criticism.
The Hammers would have been hugely disappointed to come away from their game with Burnley last weekend with a 1-1 draw, having led 1-0 for so long time with only 10 men on the pitch, and Bilic would have been hoping that they could take the positives from the draw into the clash with the Seagulls.
However, West Ham endured a miserable evening against Chris Hughton’s men. Their misery began inside the first 10 minutes as Glenn Murray took advantage of some questionable marking to head home a free-kick.
Despite the Irons putting some pressure on the away side for the rest of the half, they failed to turn that pressure into decent chances, and ultimately failed to test Mat Ryan.
Pablo Zabaleta
And they were punished as Jose Izquierdo scored a stunning effort from just outside the box in first-half stoppage-time.
The second-half told a similar story with West Ham failing to make their possession and pressure count, meaning that Murray’s 75th minute penalty ensured that the points were safe for Brighton.
A look at social media following the game provides a sense of the frustration, but one player has managed to avoid a lot of the criticism – despite being the man who conceded the penalty that led to Brighton’s third.
Pablo Zabaleta seemed to show the desire that the supporters felt the rest of the side lacked, and the West Ham fans were clearly aware that it says an awful lot about their performance that a player who gave away the penalty appeared to be their best player.
Here is the best of the reaction…
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