West Ham United 1-3 West Bromwich Albion: Hammers lose at home again as Baggies claim three points

A second consecutive home defeat, in which his side have shipped six goals, contained few saving graces for Nuno, who faced the wrath of fans on the final whistle.

Albion, slick and measured, moved into the top four with their 3,000 travelling fans revelling in the discomfort of Nuno, once manager of Black Country arch-rivals Wolves.

The Hammers' bid to regain their Premier League status had already been undermined by patchy home form, notably the missed last-gasp penalties against Charlton and QPR which ultimately cost them three points and now the supporters' patience is wearing ominously thin.

After falling behind in nine of their previous 15 games, the Hammers' early anxiety was fuelled by Max Kilman's scything foul on Ousmane Diakite at the expense of a yellow card.

The home side fashioned the first major chance, Edvin Austbo's darting run setting up Mohammadou Kante, whose shot was deflected over the top by Jayson Molumby.

But after 20 minutes, West Ham were back in familiar territory, conceding first to a move of admirable simplicity.

Isaac Price's pass carved the Hammers' defence open and Jimmy-Jay Morgan's low centre was meat and drink for unmarked Norwegian midfielder Felix Horn Myhre from point-blank range.

Moments later, Price should have made it 2-0 but spooned wide from eight yards, and the mood was already turning toxic inside half an hour among the claret-and-blue factions until fortune played a kind hand.

West Ham skipper Jarrod Bowen's skimming low shot from an angle appeared to be covered by Albion goalkeeper Max O'Leary, but a telling deflection off Callum Styles smuggled it in off the near post.

Bowen's seventh goal of the season was not enough to placate disgruntled Iron fans, who booed the Hammers off at the interval and within three minutes of the restart Albion were back in front.

Myhre cushioned Price's left-wing cross into the path of Morgan, who was afforded the space to fire home his fourth goal of the season across home goalkeeper Mads Hermansen from the corner of the six-yard box.

Kilman's header from a Bowen corner and Kyle Walker-Peters' shot from distance were beaten out by O'Leary as the Baggies were finally made to weather some sustained pressure.

However within two minutes of Walker-Peters limping off with a thigh injury, and with Nuno using up all his five substitutes, Price's corner was only half-cleared to Styles, lurking 20 yards out, and his fierce, deflected shot gave the stranded Hermansen no chance.

West Ham went through the motions of a fightback but, apart from substitute Taty Castellanos' bicycle kick straight at O'Leary in added time, they rarely threatened to reduce the deficit.

"Many things went wrong - many, many things. It was a poor performance. The idea was to start well, but after West Bromwich scored it was very difficult.

"Then at the start of the second half, many fans were not even sitting down when we conceded a poor, poor goal."

Asked about visiting fans' taunts that he would be "sacked in the morning", he responded: "This is the reality: we can only change this if we win games. The solution is results, we have to go back to results.

"When you lose at home to Charlton, Southampton and West Brom, the only solution is to improve our game.

"There is pressure every day. We have conceded six goals at home in two games and we have to fix it. That cannot happen.

"In the first half we were too far away from each other and for the second goal we allowed too much time, with no cover in the box.

"The idea and the approach is to try and score first. That is the objective of any team and it's our responsibility to change it."

"That performance has been coming. I know how difficult this league is and some teams have spent heavily, but we have to have that belief that we can handle the pressure.

"In terms of that, and scoring at the right times, it was the complete performance.

"There was a bit of noise about West Ham conceding early, and how it might create a bit of pressure around them. I've watched them and they have been unlucky at times, with fine margins going against them, but I was so happy with the way we played."

What the result means and next fixtures...