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Premier League
Liverpool 5-2 West Ham United 

Saturday, 28th February 2026
by Chris Wilkerson | Forum match thread

On a sunny afternoon on Merseyside, West Ham delivered the usual at Anfield, crumbling to defeat and wondering what might have been as sloppy, preventable goals gave them far too much to do to salvage any sort of result.

A 5-2 defeat saw all the worst of their defensive problems rise to the surface once more, and let down an attack that had forced Liverpool into consistent panic.




The scoreline did not tell the story of the game, and whilst they can reflect on what might have been, it was a defence that allowed Liverpool to score five very easy goals that cost The Hammers their chance at any vital points. Arguably, West Ham matched Liverpool in every other area, and deserve credit for the intensity they continued to play at even as everything went against them, but an excellent display in two-thirds of the pitch rarely makes up for a pathetic one in defence.

Nuno's side had moments in the first half and played well up to a point, but wasted half chances and positions of threat, whilst giving up easy goals on set pieces in a way that looked more like Graham Potter's West Ham. In a 45 minutes that had plenty of promise, the away side ended the first half 3-0 down, with all three goals coming from Liverpool corners.

The Hammers were unchanged from their draw with Bournemouth, but whilst Cherries manager Andoni Iraola said his side struggled with West Ham's intensity in the early stages of that fixture, the start here was extremely disappointing.

Passes were not sticking and the away side looked nervous, giving the ball away and allowing waves of early Liverpool pressure. They were stung by it, punished for sloppy defending and giving away a poor goal for the first time in many games.

A corner was headed out only to the edge of the box, not once but twice, and the second time saw Gravenberch take it down and quickly find Ekitike in space, just to the left of the West Ham box.

The striker controlled and hit in an instant as Mavropanos put in a sloppy bit of pressure, and the shot cannoned off his heel on the way to goal and into the bottom corner to give Liverpool a lead inside five minutes.

Suddenly, the team whose improved form has been built on fast starts and coming out of the tracks quickly found themselves fighting from behind at Anfield.

To their credit, West Ham reacted well. Bowen and Summerville forced corners, and both could have seen goals if they had found anyone but Mavropanos. The big Greek defender was up highest to meet the first, but didn't attack it strongly enough.

The second was headed out, but after Diouf nodded it back in, the ball was allowed to drop on the six-yard line. Mavropanos hit it on the swivel as it dropped, but sliced it over when he could and should have done better.

When Liverpool went forward, the pace of Summerville had them worried on the counter. One fantastic run after picking up a corner and playing a one-two on the edge of his own box to get free saw the Dutch winger carry forward 70 yards before rolling wide to Wan-Bissaka, but the full back wasted the breakaway with a poor pass that immediately gave possession away.

It was a good reaction to an awful start, as if the nerves of what could happen had disappeared when it actually did. But, for what feels like centuries, West Ham have played against sides like Liverpool and at grounds like Anfield and seen good moments quickly forgotten as sloppy defending and clinical finishing at the other end made them irrelevant.




After Gravenberch forced a good save from Hermansen, minutes later, that old habit came back to haunt them. A corner was curled in at goal from the left and Van Dijk rose highest, six yards out, to flick it on and Hermansen had no time to react as it flew on to the far corner and Liverpool had doubled their lead without having to do too much to earn it.

West Ham just couldn't take advantage of the sloppy moments Liverpool were having, whilst the home side were scoring from all West Ham offered them.

Twice Liverpool played passes to Bowen in their own box, and neither time could the captain control to make anything of them. The first was Alisson, hitting a pass right at him around six yards from goal, but it hit the forward and came right back to the goalkeeper.

Five minutes after that, Gravenberch played back into his own box and into Bowen's path, but he took his touch wide and lost the opportunity to shoot. His cross did find Summerville, but he was crowded out and the chance evaporated.

It wouldn't bounce their way, either. Bowen did well down the right to fire in a low ball to the front post, but as it went under Soucek, it bounced off Konate's knee inside the six-yard box, only to land kindly in the goalkeeper's grasp.

Liverpool should have had a third through Ekitike after a lovely disguised pass found him free in the box. The striker faked to shoot to beat one man and looked to have an easy finish into the far corner in front of him, but saw his effort miraculously blocked by a fantastic sliding challenge from Mavropanos, who appeared out of nowhere to save his side.

It was a 30-second reprieve, as Liverpool scored a third goal from a corner. This time, it was allowed to make its way to the far post, where Ekitike excellently cushioned back a volleyed pass to MacAllister, and the World Cup winner hit his own volley that skimmed off the head of a defender on its way to goal and gave the Anfield crowd a sense of relief, sure that they could not throw away a 3-0 half-time lead at home to struggling West Ham.

Going in at the break, this was a half that should remind Nuno's side how easily they can be beaten if their standards drop even a little bit. This was the defending of a team that goes down, and would deserve to. Liverpool had not been good, but they had been presented with chances in the opposition box and taken them clinically.

Whatever the manager had said at half-time, his team came out with the same threat that had given Liverpool concern in the first half. Finally, less than five minutes in, they got a reward.

After Bowen had delayed and looked to have wasted space on the right, Fernandes curled a ball into the box with the outside of his boot and caused consternation.

Konate could only flick to the far post, wide of goal, and Diouf was alive to meet it. The left back, who has the most assists of any defender in the league this season, deserves all the credit as he met the ball as it dropped and smashed a low volley back across the face of goal.




The defence stood still, Soucek didn't, the Czech midfielder reacting to get a firm boot on the ball and fire into the empty side of Alisson's goal to give The Hammers a glimmer of hope, as well as a birthday goal for Soucek, who turned 31 the day before.

It was almost immediately forgotten when Cody Gakpo was given the simplest of chances to restore Liverpool's three-goal lead. A long throw was allowed to bounce all the way across goal, Wan-Bissaka missing a simple header that left Gakpo alone, six yards out, with a ball at a nice height to volley home, only for the Dutchman to make a complete mess of it and skew his shot wide.

Their French striker had a penalty turned down moments later, and should have been booked for the dive, but Anfield was nervous, even with a two-goal lead. Whilst they had finished well, they had seen their side struggle with the West Ham attack, and know their team is much more fragile than in years gone by.

But The Hammers were pushing forward more desperately, and that gave Liverpool space to play. With 20 minutes remaining, it was 4-1.

This time, Gakpo was given even more assistance by Wan-Bissaka. It started with the Dutchman running at him outside the box on the left, the full back backed off until Gakpo was in the box and given space to shoot by the defender, who allowed Gakpo to shift it onto his right boot and didn't get enough pressure on the shot.

Once again, Liverpool had a little lucky the effort deflecting off his boot and squeezing away into the far corner when it could have gone anywhere, but it was surely enough to end any glimmer of hope West Ham thought that they had.

The attack plugged away, and Summerville kept them worried. He forced a good reaction save from Alisson after Diouf had bundled forward, the winger taking it off the left back in the box and smashing a left-footed drive with some venom, but right at Alisson, the Brazilian parrying it over.

But from the corner, West Ham breached Liverpool's defences once again with 75 minutes gone.

Bowen delivered, his corners about all he did well in the game, and it was allowed to curl and bounce to the far post. Castellanos had peeled away, and from a tight angle, the Argentine managed to guide a header into the back of the net for his third West Ham goal.

Traore was thrown on straight after, but with less than 15 minutes remaining, it was a little too late, and fans were left a little confused as to why the manager had taken so long to send on attacking reinforcements in a game they were chasing. In his defence, his bench looks like that of a poor side amidst an injury crisis, not a Premier League club that has recklessly spent hundreds of millions.

They never stopped trying to find their way back into this game. There may have only been a 1% chance of getting anything from the game, but this team showed no signs of giving in. One may wonder whether a clearly tired Jarrod Bowen may have been better substituted with another game coming midweek.




Summerville made an opening for himself after a nice one-two with Castellanos, but blazed high and wide from a decent position in the area. A minute later, Liverpool had their fifth. In a microcosm of the game, West Ham couldn't do more with half an opening, whilst Liverpool found another lucky deflection to score again.

There was too much space in the West Ham half, and it was far too easy for Frimpong to be found in space down the right of the West Ham area.

Disasi ambled over, a tired bit of pressure that should have come with more intensity, and he was punished for it as the winger tried to square it across the face of goal and saw his ball deflect off Disasi's heel and into the West Ham goal.

It was this goal that finally saw Nuno's side give up, and it was hard to blame them. Into the final 10 minutes, a three-goal lead that the West Ham defence seemed intent on giving Liverpool was just too much to claw back.

The home side probably should have had six, with two huge chances missed by their young substitutes.

Ngumoha did to Wan-Bissaka what Gakpo had done for his goal, driving in off the wing and forcing the defender back, with Wan-Bissaka seemingly unable to challenge wingers that run at him. The young forward shifted it to the left and given a free sight of goal, but his effort with the outside of the boot was saved well by the outstretched hand of Hermansen.

In stoppage time, Nyoni missed a glorious chance for his first Liverpool goal after Frimpong had flown down the right wing at a pace nobody could match. The Dutchman squared to Nyoni 12 yards out in the middle of goal, but the youngster got it all wrong, blazing over as he tried to pass it in.

5-2 as a final score was quite ridiculous, all things considered, but The Hammers had presented Liverpool with easy chances, whilst the home side had cashed in on plenty of luck. Even Arne Slot thought the half-time score ridiculous, but welcomed the luck he feels his side have been without all season.

Nuno should feel that his attack continued to play with the intensity and speed he has demanded of them, and maybe that his defence could hardly be as poor and unlucky again as they had been across the game. He will need to keep the team funding those positives, as this could be a momentum killer just as his side have got close to Forest above them. With a midweek game away at Fulham coming up, the team need to recover physically and mentally in a very short space of time.

Conceding five goals away from home in a relegation battle would usually scare the owners of a football club, but West Ham's will likely welcome it. So bad were the accounts released this week, any distraction will be gratefully grasped by a board and a chairman that continue to fail this club.

The finances now look worse than what Sullivan inherited when he bought West Ham at a bargain price, who continues to run this club into the ground. There is no excuse to support this ownership, and no reason he should be allowed to continue in this role. It is time to sell, and even a relegated West Ham would be better off in new hands than staying up and continuing with a board that makes dereliction of duty look like a club motto.




Manager's Rating

Nuno Esp?-rito Santo: 6/10 He will have to question whether his team were prepared for Liverpool's set pieces, and why they were so easy to score from. Otherwise, he can be happy with the other two-thirds of the pitch, even if his side need to be more clinical. He did take too long to use his bench, regardless of how weak it is.

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Player Ratings

Substitutes

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Match Facts

West Ham United: , , , , , , , , , , .

Goals: None.

Booked: None booked. 0  0  0  0  0  0.

Sent Off: None sent off. 0  0  0.

Liverpool: .

Subs not used: .

Goals: .

Booked: .

Sent off: None.

Referee: .

Attendance: 0.

Man of the Match: .