![\"Divine](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/skysports-efl-championship_7379020.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWest Ham ended Swansea’s four-match winning streak with a 1-0 away success that reduced the gap at the top of the Sky Bet Championship to a single point.<\/p>\n
Divine Mukasa’s calm first-half finish proved the difference on an afternoon when a new attendance record of 20,973 was set at the Swansea.com Stadium.<\/p>\n
After West Ham’s 6-0 thumping of Lincoln in midweek, this was a far more tactical affair but the importance of the win will not be lost on boss Nuno Espirito Santo.<\/p>\n
The Hammers climb to second, above Middlesbrough on goal difference, and to within a point of Swansea, who lost at home for the first time since April.<\/p>\n
Swansea had made their best start since 1923 by winning seven and drawing two of their opening 10 games.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Divine Mukasa celebrates with his team-mates after giving West Ham the lead at Swansea<\/p>\n
The Welsh outfit also boasted the tightest defence in the Championship, while West Ham’s 29 league goals at a rate of almost three per game was the highest in England’s top four divisions.<\/p>\n
There was a cup-tie feel to the occasion as the two teams battled for midfield supremacy, but openings were difficult to find.<\/p>\n
The first shot of any description took 34 minutes to arrive – but the Hammers made it count.<\/p>\n
Marko Stamenic was caught in possession and Pablo released Mohamadou Kante as Swansea defenders waited in vain for an offside flag.<\/p>\n
Kante showed good composure on the by-line to pick out the unmarked Mukasa, who slotted home his third goal of the season.<\/p>\n
It was only the third goal Swansea had conceded at home and the setback sparked the hosts in to action.<\/p>\n
Adam Idah and Ronaldo had shots deflected wide in the space of a minute before Ben Cabango shook the underside of the crossbar.<\/p>\n
Jay Fulton flighted a free-kick to the far post that was headed into Cabango’s path by Moussa Yeo.<\/p>\n
Cabango swivelled in a congested penalty area to strike the frame of the Hammers’ goal, and Swansea were unable to force the ball home in the ensuing goalmouth scramble.<\/p>\n
England international Jarrod Bowen had a quiet first half, but the Hammers skipper burst into life four minutes after the break to force a full-length stop from Lawrence Vigouroux.<\/p>\n
It was the Hammers who were starting to look like league leaders as Vigouroux produced two excellent saves to deny Pablo and Bowen.<\/p>\n
Idah fired just wide as Swansea rallied and Cabango made a hash of a bouncing ball in the penalty area as West Ham failed to clear Yeo’s centre.<\/p>\n
Substitute Stephen Eustaquio was off target and Idah headed over as Swansea began to ask serious questions of the Hammers’ back line.<\/p>\n
Bowen’s mazy run deserved more than the careless finish from Manor Solomon that followed, but Ronald wasted a great chance to equalise in stoppage time.<\/p>\n
The managers<\/p>\n
Swansea’s Vitor Matos:<\/p>\n
“It was a really tight game and West Ham scored. They are an organised team who defends well, and it is hard to break them and push them back.<\/p>\n
“We still did that and had some chances from set-pieces, and that’s the story of the game.<\/p>\n
“I would be much more concerned if we didn’t create those chances and that’s what we need to take from the game.<\/p>\n
“Small things can make a difference, but what we can do now is try to improve.<\/p>\n
“We just lacked a little bit of sharpness and conviction, but what I saw is we can compete against every team and just need to push ourselves on to beat the best teams in the league.”<\/p>\n
West Ham’s Nuno:<\/p>\n
“We wanted not only to keep the momentum, but to build on it.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s been a good week that didn’t start very well for us.<\/p>\n
“It was a very demanding week in terms of the opponents we had to face, but it finished really well due to the hard work of the boys.<\/p>\n
“The commitment, the unity and the way they played was really good against a very good Swansea side that had its chances also. It was a very intense football match.”<\/p>\n
What the result means and next fixtures… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Ham ended Swansea’s four-match winning streak with a 1-0 away success that reduced the gap at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":931830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-931829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}