David Moyes may be trying to introduce a more expansive style at West Ham but attacking flair and fluency is not worth much without the ability to consistently control games.
Mohammed Kudus and Jarrod Bowen had the Hammers in front at Brentford before, as stand-in captain James Ward-Prowse said, they beat themselves with sloppy mistakes.
Michail Antonio, whose influence seems to be diminishing weekly, contrived to steal a tap in from the feet of a fuming Said Benrahma when the visitors were dominant and leading 2-1 approaching half time.
And then they just failed to turn up after the break, inviting Brentford on until the pressure became too much. Thomas Frank’s home side deserved plenty of credit as they strung together a third straight win and Bryan Mbeumo again caused havoc.
Yet Ward-Prowse, wearing the armband with Kurt Zouma injured, felt it was ultimately a case of West Ham shooting themselves in the foot.
“There’s a few mistakes we made throughout the game and that’s really disappointing because we caused the defeat ourselves,” Ward-Prowse said. “We’ve not suffered from their brilliance, we’ve made the mistakes and been punished.
"In the Premier League, you can’t afford to give any team three goals and then expect ourselves to score four. At 2-1 up, it was a pivotal moment for us, and we should have seen the game out.
“You need to do it throughout when you’re playing against any team, and if you’re not on your mettle then you’re going to get punished. That was our doing, not theirs.”
West Ham missed the tenacity of Edson Alvarez and work ethic of Lucas Paqueta, both suspended, while Zouma’s absence from defence was keenly felt when it came to managing the second period.
Dinos Mavropanos, stepping in for Zouma, was a touch unfortunate when conceding the own goal that brought Brentford level. But the Greece international endured a torrid afternoon - especially when faced with the trickery of Mbeumo.
There appears to be a significant drop off beyond Moyes’ best XI and with the calendar set to become even more packed after this month’s international break that must be cause for concern.
It is also underwriting the stellar work of Bowen, who became the first player in the Premier League era to score in his team’s first six away games.
On Saturday he continued in a centre-forward role having done so well in last week’s EFL Cup win over Arsenal. That result now looks an anomaly in a run that otherwise reads four defeats from the past five.
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Bowen may be in sublime individual form but that means nothing to him when three points were thrown away. And he is calling on the team to get back on track against Olympiacos in the Europa League on Thursday before hosting Nottingham Forest on Sunday.
“Talk is cheap now, we've had really poor results minus Arsenal,” Bowen said. “It has got to change on the pitch and we have to do that as players, as a whole collective.
“We have to put it right on the pitch. The next two games we have to win the next two games, no questions. The Arsenal game was a positive but we've still lost the last three in the league. Win on Thursday and win on Sunday, those are the standards we have to set ourselves.”
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