{"id":429340,"date":"2026-05-02T21:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T21:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/429340\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T21:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T21:53:12","slug":"has-west-hams-defeat-by-brentford-opened-relegation-escape-route-for-tottenham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/429340\/","title":{"rendered":"Has West Ham’s defeat by Brentford opened relegation escape route for Tottenham?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Tomas Soucek’s effort grazed a post in the final stages of West Ham<\/a>‘s defeat at Brentford<\/a> on Saturday, their supporters could have been forgiven for exchanging exasperated looks.<\/p>\n

The 3-0 scoreline<\/a> at Gtech Community Stadium may point to a comfortable victory for Keith Andrews’ Europe-chasing side, but it tells only half the story.<\/p>\n

West Ham<\/a> struck the woodwork four times – a joint record in the Premier League this season – with Valentin Castellanos hitting a post either side of Konstantinos Mavropanos’ first-half own goal, before Crysencio Summerville slammed a powerful drive against the crossbar with the score at 3-0.<\/p>\n

Soucek was first to the rebound but guided his effort against the outside of a post.<\/p>\n

Victory would have lifted West Ham<\/a> five points clear of the bottom three, but instead they have left the door ajar for Tottenham<\/a> to leapfrog them with victory at Aston Villa<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Hammers remain two points above Spurs, who have a game in hand and are nine goals healthier in terms of goal difference.<\/p>\n

“We had chances, hit the post twice, hit the bar and post again,” West Ham<\/a> captain Jarrod Bowen told Sky Sports. “It’s really disappointing.<\/p>\n

“We had good opportunities. On another day we would have got the win. We’ve done a lot of good things.”<\/p>\n

Manager Nuno Espirito Santo told BBC Match of the Day: “It’s up to us how we will react from this situation.<\/p>\n

“Let’s stick together. We have three games to go. It will go down to the wire.”<\/p>\n

West Ham<\/a> are three points below in-form Nottingham Forest<\/a>, after Leeds United<\/a> moved nine points clear of Spurs with a win against Burnley<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

A three-team battle for survival? It is beginning to look that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Tomas Soucek’s effort grazed a post in the final stages of West Ham‘s defeat at Brentford on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-429340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}