West Ham ease pressure on Graham Potter with stunning late win at Nottingham Forest | OneFootball

West Ham eased the pressure on Graham Potter as three late goals saw them move off the foot of the Premier League following an extraordinary 3-0 victory at Nottingham Forest.

Potter’s position as Hammers head coach has been under increasing scrutiny after his side were thrashed by Sunderland and Chelsea in the league and knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Wolves in midweek.

But captain Jarrod Bowen’s strike gave them the lead after 84 minutes before Lucas Paqueta’s penalty and Callum Wilson’s first West Ham goal handed Potter just his sixth win in 23 matches in charge of the club.

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Potter’s side ended a difficult week with three points (Mike Egerton/PA Wire)

As well as collecting their first points of the campaign, West Ham kept a clean sheet having shipped 11 goals in their last three outings against a Forest side who desperately lacked a cutting edge.

Potter’s opposite number Nuno Espirito Santo has had a tumultuous past fortnight of his own after admitting his relationship with owner Evangelos Marinakis had become strained and the pair are set for clear-the-air talks during the international break.

If there were talking points aplenty surrounding both clubs off the pitch, there were few on it once the action started, with Hammers frontman Niclas Fullkrug twice heading over from corners early on.

Forest’s summer signing Dan Ndoye got in behind the defence on a couple of occasions but his end product was lacking, while Callum Hudson-Odoi and Morgan Gibbs-White were unusually out of sorts as the hosts struggled to make an impact in the final third.

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Bowen scored the opening goal a few days after a confrontation with a fan at Wolves (Mike Egerton/PA Wire)

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(Mike Egerton/PA Wire)

As misplaced passes and errors piled up from the hosts, West Ham had the best chance of a tepid first 45 minutes when debutant Mateus Fernandes, a £40million signing from Southampton, found space on the left and pulled back to Paqueta, whose first-time strike was tipped over by Matz Sels.

Having failed to find the target in the opening half, Forest finally tested Mads Hermansen within a minute of the restart but an unmarked Chris Wood directed a tame glancing header straight at the Hammers goalkeeper.

Either side of a three-minute break for a fan being treated in the stand, Paqueta miscued wide at the near post before Sels beat away Fullkrug’s strike as the game started to open up.

While Forest were dictating the tempo as rain started to fall, it was West Ham who continued to have the better chances, with Wilson almost making an instant impact upon his introduction after the hour when his deflected strike was clawed over by Sels.

The lively Wilson again tested Sels but when fellow substitute Crysencio Summerville was upended after a driving run, the loose ball fell to Bowen, whose low first-time effort beat the Forest keeper.

Summerville charged forward again moments later and was tripped in the area by Ibrahim Sangare, who has this week been linked with a move to West Ham, leading to Paqueta calmly slotting home the resulting 88th-minute penalty.

Wilson, who moved to West Ham this summer following his release from Newcastle, then added further gloss to the scoreline by heading home from El Hadji Malick Diouf’s left-wing cross in added-on time.

As Forest fans streamed for the exit, matters might have worsened for them after Bowen slalomed into the box, only to be denied by an excellent save from Sels.