West Ham United 3 Leeds United 0: Whites unable to find reserves to influence survival Sunday — Yorkshire Post 24/5/26

By Stuart Rayner

In the heat of the final day of a wonderful Premier League season for them, Leeds United could not find the extra reserves to sign off with a win and 50 points.

In the end, it did not matter too much. Leeds have been safe from relegation for a while, and Tottenham Hotspur's 1-0 victory at home to Everton meant their 3-0 win could not save West Ham United.

Leeds were not at full throttle on a tough day to be running around, but as with the other two games since Premier League safety was secured, neither were they lying down. West Ham applied more pressure, Leeds created better chances.

They had the first good one, in the eighth minute. Whether James Justin was shooting or passing does not matter a great deal but Lukas Nmecha, deputising for Anton Stach, shinned his shot well wide.

Pablo's volley into the ground could have been goalbound but Tomas Souceck chose to gave it a helping hand – or head – and flicked over after 16 minutes during a spell of pressure which only produced one Karl Darlow save, beating a Mateus Fernandes effort away. Pascal Struijk stepped across Taty Castellanos to stop him chancing his arm too.

Soon after a water break gave Leeds some respite.

Their fans were having much more fun, mockingly running through the list of opponents West Ham will be facing in next season's Championship.

In the 35th minute, Nmecha looked more like a tricky winger than a centre-forward doing a job at inside-left as he beat his man then teed up Dominic Calvert-Lewin for a shot a World Cup-bound striker might have expected to bury. The man overlooked by England gave Mads Hermansen the chance to stick his left boot out and save.

Five minutes later Calvert-Lewin had another chance, this one made by Brenden Aaronson, but hit it into Konstantinos Mavropanos' shins. Before West Ham could get the ball away, Jayden Bogle hit into the side netting.

Mavropanos, stretching backwards, put a header onto the roof of the net after 43 minutes and just as the half ticked into stoppage time Jaka Bijol stretched out to beat Soucek to what would otherwise have been a tap-in from El Hajo Malick Diouf's ball in.

Even the boos as West Ham trudged into the cool of the dressing rooms at the break with Spurs leading were half-hearted.

For a spell early in the second half, it looked as if the Hammers quite enjoyed the idea of Championship football.

A great chance fell to Castellanos in the 47th minute but having been taken out of the game by Crysencio Summerville's pass to Callum Wilson, the defender thrust himself back into the picture.

"That's why you're going down," the away fans taunted.

Bogle's miscontrol and Ao Tanaka's heavy touch gave the Argentinian another go minutes later, but he blasted over.

When he overhit a pass to Summerville in a two-on-one breakaway, the boos rang out.

To his credit, though, the striker kept going, and when Joe Rodon was mysteriously rooted to the ground at a 68th-minute corner, he headed in.

Just after a charitable double Leeds substitution, bringing Joel Piroe on for what was probably a farewell appearance and Facundo Buonanotte for what almost certainly was, Nmecha lost the ball at centre-forward after what he thought was a foul, allowing Fernandes to thread a lovely pass. Struijk could not get to it but Jarrod Bowen could, to slot home.

Having recently taken two points off them, Leeds at least kept trying to do their bit for Spurs just in case they need it.

Buonanotte had a shot deflected for a corner and Piroe was unable to get any power on a difficult header created by Nmecha’s knockdown of a Daniel James cross.

But manager Daniel Farke often says 95 per cent is not enough for Leeds in the Premier League, and so it proved.

Darlow touched a Wilson shot away when Leeds gave the ball away sloppily and the Hammers worked the corner short for the striker to blast in.

Leeds players celebrated their season rather than dwelt on their meaningless defeat as the Hammers players hung around nervously on the pitch waiting for confirmation of their fate.

That the visitors had no such concerns is no mean feat.