West Ham again aim the gun at their own feet.
The free kick that led to Sunderland’s opening goal, dispatched cleanly and with fizz by Steven Fletcher, was committed in wholly stupid fashion by Carl Jenkinson. Though not as galling, or directly responsible for a goal as some of West Ham’s errors in previous matches, Jenkinson’s naive nudge in the back of a sideline-headed Fabio Borini was unnecessary in the extreme. Once again, the West Ham defence took out a full set of toes from point-blank range, enlivening the Sunderland crowd in the process.
Then, training the crosshairs on the other foot, just a few minutes later a dismal square pass from Dimitri Payet was chased down by Lens. Though the Frenchman couldn’t control it, the ball fell to a team mate, who played Lens through first-time. He chopped a sublime dink over Adrian, and it was Sunderland: 2, West Ham Toes: 0. They bailed themselves out again, as they did against Norwich, but their powers of recovery shouldn’t disguise these errors.
