West Ham United 3-2 Fulham: Graham Potter wins first win as Hammers boss

Potter was beaming with joy as the full-time whistle blew at the London Stadium.

The former Brighton and Chelsea boss will have had little time to work with his players since taking over on Thursday, but there were already signs of improvement.

All the pre-match talk was about their desperate search for a striker following the injury Niclas Fullkrug picked up in Friday’s FA Cup defeat to Aston Villa, to add to Michail Antonio’s absence following his car crash.

However, they were clinical here with their four shots resulting in three goals.

Admittedly, they were helped twice by Fulham errors, but goals from three midfielders will please Potter.

However, there will be concerns at the other end of the pitch, where two goals are easily conceded again.

West Ham have the fourth worst defensive record in the Premier League and Potter will need to tighten that up soon if he wants them to climb the table.

For Fulham, this was a case of what might have been. They were very good in the first 15 minutes but were unable to find the opening goal and it proved costly.

Their recent run is encouraging, but six of those eight unbeaten league games have ended in draws and teams are starting to pull away from the race for European football.

It may be a night manager Marco Silva is willing to write off as a bad one, because it is difficult to legislate for the mistakes of Andreas Pereira, to the first goal, and then Leno.

The same could be said of Traore’s late miss, which really should have been buried to earn Fulham what would have been a deserved point.