If at first you don’t succeed, then try, and try again. West Ham's Tomas Soucek had already squandered two chances to settle this topsy-turvy contest by the time a third fell his way, first poking against the crossbar on the stretch, then seeing a desperate header bounce down and agonisingly up over the crossbar off the fingertips of Odysseas Vlachodimos in the Nottingham Forest goal.
You cannot keep a good man down, though, particularly when James Ward-Prowse will insist on serving cross after cross on a sixpence, and from West Ham’s ninth corner, amends were made, Soucek again straining to guide low into the bottom-left corner.
The midfielder’s joyous, twirling celebration had something of Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain about it, but this was a winning goal vital in dispelling the odd cloud that had begun to gather over the London Stadium heading into the international break.
A 3-2 victory sent the Hammers back into the top-half of the table and eased the chalk and cheese narrative emerging between their league and cup form after David Moyes’s side had claimed only one point from four matches since the end of September.
Externally at least, small pressure - seemingly never far away - had been building on the Scot, too, amid fresh speculation last week that his contract will not be extended beyond the end of the season.
The 60-year-old, for what its worth, appears relaxed about the situation at present, small fry compared to the scrutiny of last term, when at one stage it felt every other match carried his job on the line.
Here, Moyes was eventually justified in his decision to recall Soucek in a tweaked midfield, though not before the same reservations over his perceived cautious tendencies had surfaced once more.
Despite the swift boost of Lucas Paqueta’s smartly-taken (if comically occurring) opener with the game barely 150 seconds old, West Ham spent most of the first 45 minutes meandering along without zest, a team littered with exciting players like Paqueta, Mohammed Kudus and Jarrod Bowen playing cautious, hesitant football.
Moyes, in fairness, hardly tried to conceal his own frustration with his team’s failure to keep foot on pedal after their early breakthrough.
“We hadn’t played well enough in the first half,” he said. “We weren’t quick enough. Was it a bit to do with a little carry over from Thursday [against Olympiacos]? It could be, but also it could be Nottingham Forest leaving us on the ball a bit.
“I thought we played okay but we were that slow in the first half that I was bored myself watching it at times.”
For as long as West Ham have Ward-Prowse, they will always have another method of cracking games open, but their struggles against sides content to cede possession remains of major concern.
Having managed to set his Burnley side up to frustrate Arsenal for so long at the Emirates on Saturday, Vincent Kompany will surely have been taking interested notes, with the Hammers due to go to Turf Moor the other side of the international break.
For now, though, the Irons go into their fortnight off having claimed three vital wins across three different competitions in their four matches since the start of the month, and perhaps rueing its timing as momentum threatens to build.
