Michael Olise’s dramatic stoppage-time winner secured a first away win of the season for Crystal Palace on Sunday – and send West Ham falling further down the Premier League table.
Olise fired the ball home, via a deflection off Aaron Cresswell, just 17 seconds after West Ham’s Michail Antonio had wasted a good opportunity with a weak cross straight into the arms of Palace keeper Vicente Guaita.
It was a carbon copy of the gaffe Antonio made against the same opposition at Selhurst Park in 2017, when instead of running the clock down his cross led to Wilfried Zaha breaking away to equalise.
Antonio only came on as a substitute at half-time, but he was the central figure in a madcap finish to the match.
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Said Benrahma had earlier fired the Hammers into the lead against the run of play with a 20-yard screamer, but the West Ham defence undid all his good work with a horror show five minutes before half-time.
There was no danger when Lukasz Fabianski rolled the ball to Craig Dawson, who in turn sent it towards Thilo Kehrer on the right wing. But the Germany international was robbed by Eberechi Eze and Zaha outmuscled Dawson before lashing the ball past Fabianski.
“For all the things Palace did well, their good play didn’t lead to goals,” admitted Hammers manager David Moyes. “Our bad play got them the first goal and the second was bad play as well.”
Defeat saw West Ham, who could have climbed into the top half with a victory, slip down to 15th.
However, Moyes insisted: “We are doing okay. We could do better but we are doing okay. Hopefully we can take into next week the same sort of positive frame of mind, but we are going to have to play much better.”
Nevertheless, there is some unrest in the stands at the London Stadium despite West Ham having won their previous six home matches.
Moyes’ decision to substitute Benrahma was met with boos while the substitution of the out-of-form Tomas Soucek was loudly cheered.
“I thought he scored a good goal, I don’t know if he had much of an impact after,” said Moyes. “There’s a lot of experts out there, isn’t there?”
Instead it was Palace who climbed above West Ham and into the top 10, and boss Patrick Vieira said: “It’s been coming.
“I think away from home we’ve had some difficult games but overall performances were quite good, and I think today it was a really good performance from the team.
“This is the way we want to play. From the start we were positive, we dominated the game, but one other part that we need to improve is trying to score those goals when we are on top.
“It’s really good for the confidence to win away from home in a really good game of football. We were well-positioned, well-disciplined and played good football at times. I’m really happy with the players. Today they deserved that win.”
West Ham: Fabianski 6, Kehrer 5, Dawson 5, Zouma 6, Cresswell 6, Rice 7, Soucek 5 (Downes 64, 5), Paqueta 5, (Fornals, 90) Bowen 6, Scamacca 5 (Antonio 46, 4), Benrahma 7 (Lanzini 64, 5).
Subs: Areola, Coufal, Ogbonna, Aguerd, Emerson.
Crystal Palace: Guaita 6, Clyne 6, Guehi 6, Andersen 7, Mitchell 7, Doucoure 7, (Milivojevic 77, 6), Schlupp 7, Eze 7, Zaha 7, Olise 7, Ayew 6.
Subs: Johnstone, Whitworth, Ward, Tomkins, Mateta, Hughes, Ebiowei, Riedewald.
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