Even for a manager of such experience - he will bring up 1,000 games in the dugout on Thursday - David Moyes cannot have had too many better weeks.
Fresh from beating Tottenham and eliminating holders Manchester City from the League Cup, West Ham scored four at Villa Park. Ben Johnson, Declan Rice, Pablo Fornals and Jarrod Bowen struck and this is their best unbeaten run in the top flight for 35 years. The cliche is that the league table takes shape after 10 games. West Ham are fourth and performing with such resolve and coherence that they stand a chance of staying there.
For Dean Smith, however, this is the worst spell for 20 months. Aston Villa were reduced to 10 men as they suffered a fourth consecutive defeat. Smith had changed shape and personnel in a bid to halt Villa’s slide but, spirited as they were, West Ham had more incision and momentum. It summed up Villa’s self-destructive streak that, even when Ollie Watkins hauled them level, they could only preserve parity for four minutes.
Smith had reacted to an awful first-half performance at Arsenal last Friday by ditching his back three, going to 4-3-3 and dropping his out-of-form captain Tyrone Mings. Yet it was a sign of how his plans were going awry that he had to summon Mings soon into the second half.
Villa’s defensive difficulties worsened in his absence. Matt Targett, who is having a wretched season, could have done better for the first goal while Emi Martinez was beaten twice from distance and perhaps should have saved Rice’s shot. Then Ezri Konsa, who was booked for halting Jarrod Bowen, had a yellow card upgraded to a red after a VAR review.
Smith’s problems had begun even before Jacob Ramsey departed injured. Johnson latched on to Rice’s cross-field pass, cut infield and drilled a left-footed shot past Martinez. Just his second senior goal was a memorable one. Johnson only got a run in the side because Vladimir Coufal was injured but it felt entirely typical of Moyes’ resourceful West Ham that he has taken his chance.
Villa’s defence were stretched again when Matty Cash did brilliantly to turn Bowen’s goalbound effort wide and were breached for a second time when Rice drilled in his first league goal of the season from 25 yards via the post.
In between, Villa had levelled, aided by a summer signing. Emi Buendia chalked up 16 assists in the Championship last season but he had made an undistinguished start since his transfer from Norwich and this was the first goal he had made since then. Meeting John McGinn’s pass, he wriggled free to deliver a low cutback. Watkins dispatched a low shot.
Last season’s top scorer had felt compromised by the arrival of Danny Ings, and liberated by the absence of his injured strike partner and Watkins struck the bar with a header from the indefatigable McGinn’s cross, Lukasz Fabianski tipping it on to the woodwork.
Villa were down to 10 by then after a review of both centre-backs’ actions. Kortney Hause had escaped a red card for a forearm smash on Fornals before Konsa was expelled for his foul seconds later.
Villa’s mood was scarcely improved when Bowen only received a yellow card for pushing McGinn over and then he played a pivotal part in two late goals. First he sprinted clear to shoot and, while Martinez parried it, Fornals was on hand to meet the rebound. Then Manuel Lanzini gave Bowen a tap-in and Villa more reasons to bid good riddance to an October that brought them no points.
