Graham Potter must never have imagined managing West Ham could be as simple and carefree as this.
This is a job that’s meant to be tumultuous, dramatic, fraught with stress and drama and a complete unawareness of what your team might serve up next.
He’s endured that in his short reign so far, too. A dreadful defeat at home by Brentford followed up by a remarkable win at Arsenal. To follow that with the visit of Leicester was surely a classic West Ham banana skin in waiting.
Yet the Hammers have rarely had it so easy as strikes from Tomas Soucek and an own goal from Jannik Vestergaard secured West Ham’s first back-to-back league wins since March last year.
That old saying about not needing to get out of third gear? West Ham barely needed to get out of neutral.
By the time Evan Ferguson missed the chance to make it 3-0 late on, there was so little jeopardy in the contest that it almost felt like it didn’t matter. Nice for the loanee to get his first goal but, ah well, never mind.
West Ham have rarely had it as easy as they did in beating Leicester 2-0 on Thursday evening
Tomas Soucek opened the scoring, with Jannik Vestergaard failing to cut out the ball before also scoring an own goal
Graham Potter must never have imagined managing West Ham could be as simple and carefree as this
If anything summed up the malaise of Leicester’s relegation fight, or complete lack of it, it was centre-back Vestergaard, who failed to cut out a ball into the box for West Ham’s opener before turning it into his own net for their second on the verge of half-time.
It was a victory over West Ham that kick-started Leicester’s survival bid 10 years ago, sparking a run of seven wins from their final nine games that kept them up against all the odds after spending most of the season bottom of the table. The following season, they achieved the impossible and won the title under Claudio Ranieri.
On this showing, there’s zero chance of either of those things happening again as they fell to their 11th defeat in their last 12 league matches under Ruud van Nistelrooy.
‘The players are giving me everything,’ insisted the Foxes boss. ‘The lack of confidence showed. I need to implement the mentality to convince them to go out there and try to win, not to try not to lose.
‘I saw two different halves. We created absolutely nothing in the first half because of the lack of taking initiative and the safe options on and off the ball.
‘Thank god in the second half they shrugged that off and started to take the initiative to try to win but the damage was already done. That has to be a big lesson in our mindset.’
Leicester’s precarious finances are unlikely to see Van Nistelrooy sacked any time soon and asked if he was confident he would still be in charge for Leicester’s next game, he replied: ‘What do you want me to say? I keep working. I keep going.’
There had been little between the two sides until birthday boy Tomas Soucek reacted quickest to Mohammed Kudus’s saved close-range effort.
Ruud van Nistelrooy’s Leicester lost for the 11th time in their last 12 Premier League games
Evan Ferguson missed a good chance to make it 3-0 and score his first goal for the club
Vestergaard’s refusal to make any effort to stop Aaron Cresswell’s quality ball from reaching Kudus told you why one of these side looks to be moving forwards and the other is set for the drop.
From there, it was all West Ham. Potter’s men moved it around neatly in front of Leicester’s goal, probing away as the Foxes offered nothing in return and, on the stroke of half-time, Vestergaard doubled the Hammers’ lead as he turned Jarrod Bowen’s near-post effort into his own net.
Van Nistelrooy felt he got more from his side in the second half but Leicester still created nothing.
They had a bit more of the ball, they pressed a bit more, they flung a few more balls into the box and forced West Ham’s defenders to make a couple more clearing headers.
But it was still West Ham, who created the final chance and it was only the sight of Ferguson missing a late chance that stopped this simple, straightforward contest being the perfect night.
‘I’m really pleased for the players,’ said Potter. ‘They have been working really hard so it was nice to get the reward of points and important to get the clean sheet as well – it’s something we’ve been trying to improve.’
