West Ham bounce back to dominate Watford

West Ham bounced back from Emmanuel Dennis’ third-minute opener to ease to a dominant 4-1 win at Watford and cut the gap to the top four to four points.

Dennis’ self-made stunner (4) – his eighth goal of the season – appeared to answer any questions over whether the Hornets would be rusty in their first game for 18 days. But the bright performance the goal encouraged never materialised and the Hammers were soon in full control to raise the pressure on Claudio Ranieri, whose side have now lost their last five games.

Said Benrahma’s warning shot against the woodwork served as anything but as the home side hung on against mounting West Ham pressure, but eventually their defences were finally breached as Tomas Soucek fired in Jarrod Bowen’s slide-rule pass to level (27).

Less than two and a half minutes after they had led, Watford were behind. Michail Antonio’s run to the byline gave him time to look up and find Benrahma, who went one better from his earlier effort and beat Daniel Bachmann courtesy of a kind nick off Adam Masina (29).

Only a generous VAR decision stopped Watford falling further behind three minutes into the second half when Soucek was penalised for a soft foul several seconds before adding what he thought was West Ham’s third.

Another decision from the video assistant made amends for the visitors as Bachmann was judged to have fouled Bowen in the box, and captain Mark Noble sealed victory from 12 yards (58) before Nikola Vlasic rounded off a superb afternoon for the Hammers in added time with a simple finish (90+4).

Watford remain outside the bottom three but they have not picked up a single point since costing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer his job against Manchester United on November 20, while West Ham jump above Tottenham into fifth, four points off Arsenal in the final Champions League spot.