West Ham Fall to Charlton on Home Championship Bow as Nuno Apologises to Fans
West Ham United's first home match of the Championship season ended in a 2-1 defeat to Charlton Athletic, who maintained their perfect start to the campaign in front of more than 62,000 spectators at the London Stadium BBC Sport.
Charlton's opener came from the simplest of routes. Lloyd Jones met a long throw-in that was allowed to bounce inside the West Ham penalty area, heading home in the seventh minute. After the break, Tyreece Campbell doubled the lead when Konstantinos Mavropanos was dispossessed near his own box — a turnover that left the home side with a mountain to climb BBC Sport.
West Ham missed a late penalty that would have set up a frantic finish, and Charlton held on for all three points ESPN. The visitors left with a result that few saw coming given the balance of the match.
The numbers tell a story of dominance without reward. West Ham held more than 77% of possession and registered an expected goals total — a measure of chance quality — of 2.96 to Charlton's 0.57. By that metric, West Ham created enough to win comfortably. They did not take their chances, and Charlton took theirs BBC Sport.
Nuno Espirito Santo, the former Wolves and Nottingham Forest manager now in charge at West Ham, did not hide from the result. He apologised to the club's supporters, the Claret and Blue Army, and said his team had "failed" them whufc.com.
"We created a lot of situations but we weren't accurate enough in the boxes," Nuno said. "We have to defend much better. We had a lot of possession and tried to break them down, which is not easy" BBC Sport.
The Portuguese manager outlined his vision for the season: a side that will be protagonists, hold the ball, and work on combinations in the final third — the area of the pitch closest to the opponent's goal, where matches are won and lost. He promised his players would "repeat, repeat, repeat" while keeping belief in the process and bouncing back BBC Sport.
For West Ham, the fixtures do not get easier. A Carabao Cup tie against Southampton on Tuesday offers an immediate chance to respond, but the league calendar then brings unbeaten duo Watford and Wolves BBC Sport. Two matches against sides yet to taste defeat this season will test whether Nuno's process can produce results quickly enough for a fanbase that filled a 62,000-seat stadium for a second-tier home opener The Athletic FC.
Charlton, meanwhile, march on. Three wins from three, a perfect start, and a victory at one of the division's biggest grounds. The Championship is a long season, but they could not have asked for more.
