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Missed opportunity: West Ham should be kicking themselves for not getting 3 points – Opinion

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Statistically, West Ham versus Aston Villa is the fixture that yields the most goalless games in the history of the Premier League as pointed out by BBC Sport, yet the Hammers should have walked away last night with more.

With more shots against the newly-promoted side on the night despite going down to 10-men with 23 minutes to go, Manuel Pellegrini’s side will be scratching their heads as to how they didn’t walk away with three points in a contest that saw infighting between Villa and an entertaining end-to-end fixture for the neutral.

Indeed, Villa enjoyed more shots on target than West Ham, yet the attitudes on display showed that the visitors from east London looked the favourites to the take the three points home, and realistically, they should have.

As numbers from WhoScored show, it was interceptions that seemingly kept the score at 0-0 when Mike Dean blew for full-time. The likes of Sebastien Haller and Mark Noble were well denied by some expertly timed blocks by the likes of Frederic Guilbert and Tyrone Mings, who can be seen as the heroes on the night for Villa supporters.

A win would have been massive for West Ham as well. Three points for the Irons would have taken them third in the Premier League table, behind Manchester City on goal difference alone and ahead of the likes of Manchester United, Tottenham and Arsenal, something surely would have been used as motivation by Pellegrini before kick-off.

A stalemate isn’t the worst result in the world for the Hammers. After all, clean sheets are hard to come by in the Premier League and even more so for a side like West Ham, yet on the night, three points seemed to be there for the taking for the east London team, and an opportunity to set the pace early in the season has now fallen from their fingers.

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