West Ham United goalkeeper Alphonse Areola had a celebrity Millwall fan sharing words of support, never mind Tomas Soucek, after a 2-1 defeat to Nottingham Forest which makes relegation from the Premier League feel like a bit of an inevitability.
To think, West Ham United actually produced their finest defensive performance in weeks at home to Sean Dyche’s Forest. The one club whose malaise was giving the London Stadium outfit some hope of a ‘Great Escape’ to rival that of 2007.
Konstantinos Mavropanos and Ollie Scarles were superb. Kyle Walker-Peters was good too. And although Hammers legend Tony Gale questioned Jean-Clair Todibo’s role in Nottingham Forest’s 55th minute equaliser, this was not a game a solid back-four deserved to lose.
But lose it they did.
What did YOU make of the penalty which gifted Forest the win?
What defence could Areola have?
Surely only West Ham could go 2-0 up in a game and still end up on the wrong side of a 2-1 scoreline.
Crysencio Summerville thought his luck had turned when he rifled home just after the break. Lady Luck is not that kind-hearted. Summerville was denied a first league goal since October 2024 by an offside against debutant Taty Castellanos before Forest went up the other end and cancelled out Murillo’s early own goal.
And as Alphonse Areola accidentally ‘whacked’ Morgan Gibbs-White in the face, a promising performance would suffer the most brutal of endings. Nottingham Forest’s number ten rolled the penalty down the middle with one minute of normal time remaining.
Tomas Soucek backs Alphonse Areola after West Ham United pay the penalty v Nottingham Forest
Tomas Soucek, it is fair to say, was less convinced about the awarding of the spot-kick than referee Tony Harrington. Or, indeed, the VAR officials who sent him to the screen.
“For me, it is a joke,” a furious Soucek told Sky Sports. “I just saw it again and I think we can have 20 penalties per game if it is like that. I came to the Premier League because I thought it was the toughest league in the world and we are all fighters and warriors, but this looks more like basketball when you can’t touch the player.
“This is what I saw.
“[Areola] is the same in the dressing room,” the long-serving midfielder adds. “He didn’t know who was fouled. He came for the ball, I think I cleared it and that was already out. We didn’t know why there was VAR and then the penalty, so it was tough for all of us.”
Soucek does raise a good point. The ball had already been headed clear before Areola made contact with Gibbs-White. And it’s fair to say both players were running at each other.
It’s like one of those ‘high foot’ rulings. One man’s ‘high foot’ is another’s ‘low head’.
Even Danny Baker, broadcasting legend and Millwall fanatic, was willing to break ranks and go into bat for his hated East London neighbours.
“I am a Millwall supporter. Nothing pleases us more than West Ham struggling. But that was not a penalty,” Baker wrote on his X account. “Goalkeeper goes for ball at same time as forward. Someone gets there first and they collide.
“VAR is such an obscenity to the game.”
Soucek accepts the Hammers are in a ‘really bad position’
To think, on Christmas day, West Ham had a very winnable four-game stretch ahead of them. Three home matches against Fulham, Brighton and Nottingham Forest, plus a trip to bottom of the table Wolves.
What more could they wished for in order to clamber out of the bottom three heading into the FA Cup third round weekend?
Who was your MAN OF THE MATCH during West Ham v Forest?
Some good performances on a bad night…
Having picked up only one point from a possible twelve, and while extending the gap between themselves and Forest to seven points, it is hard to imagine how the last few weeks could possibly have gone any worse.
“I know our position,” Soucek says. “This is not time for nice words. We have so many games but we have to do it from the first game. Now is the time [to turn things around]. We have to be winning. Seven points, we cannot just win one or two, we have to win a few in a row.
“I still believe and will until the end, but I have to say that we are in a really bad position.
“We have to show the honesty between each other. The truth of who cares and who not. We have to do it because if someone is easy to play and relaxed he has to be out of the squad. We will look to the mirror and know the position we are in. Nobody from the squad wants to play second division next season.”
“We have to be behind the manager always, until the end. I believe he can be a big help for us because he did a lot through the Premier League already. It’s on all of us, Nuno as the manager, us as the players, the whole training ground.
“Especially for him I want to keep going and do the maximum, we don’t want them to lose their jobs. All of us, even for the fans, we need to stick together.”
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