West Ham 1-1 Aston Villa
by Paul Donovan 
at the London Stadium

WEST HAM dropped two more points against a well organised Aston Villa at the London Stadium this afternoon.

The game was just 16 minutes old when Douglas Luiz set Alex Moreno away down the left. His cross saw Ollie Watkins get ahead of Nayef Aguerd to head home.

The home side though were quickly back on level terms, when Leon Bailey forced Lucas Paqueta to the ground inside the penalty area. Said Benrahma duly despatched the resulting penalty.

A cross from Benrahma was then headed wide by Kurt Zouma. Though, Danny Ings was pushed to the ground in the build up, which probably should have been another penalty.

Another Villa effort, resulting from a Moreno/ Jacob Ramsey combination, saw the shot smothered by Alphonse Areola. The second half saw a shot from Benrahma pushed out by Emiliano Martinez. It was the little Algerian, who had most of the best chances for West Ham, controlling a long ball from Zouma before firing over from outside the area.

Late on, a cut back from the industrious Jarrod Bowen was put over by substitute Pablo Formals.

Another Benrahma shot from close in was then deflected for a corner.

It looked as though the home side might have found a way in injury time, when Benrahma put substitute Maxwel Cornet away but he fluffed the chance - and was ruled offside anyway.

So West Ham once again displayed their inability to win Premier League matches at home or away.

There are too many players off their game, most notably Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek.

There needs to a major improvement, with more clinical finishing required, if they are to escape the drop.

West Ham manager David Moyes felt the missed chances cost his side. “We didn't get the second goal, that our performance in the second half warranted," said Moyes, who believes that West Ham's home form has been ok over recent weeks, whilst away from home has been a problem. “We are just not finishing well - we made a lot of opportunities today."

The manager praised the players for their effort. "We are back getting closer to what we were - let's hope we can build on it."

Moyes thought the team''s performance in midweek against AEK Larnaca hadn't been good but they got the result. Today, the performance was good but they did not get the result.

Aston Villa head coach Unai Emery felt it was a "very soft" penalty.

He felt Villa were in control, when they took the lead and if they'd got a second would have gone on to win the game.