West Ham came from two goals behind to take a point from a heated London derby at Millwall, their first meeting with their fierce rivals since 2012. The Hammers arrived top of the Championship and chasing a fifth straight win, but they trailed at half-time to goals from Caleb Taylor and Camiel Neghli and needed replies from Mohamadou Kanté and Konstantinos Mavropanos to salvage the draw. They finished the match with 10 men after Kanté was sent off.
The fixture was played under heavy security, with the Metropolitan Police deploying 400 officers to ensure there was no repeat of the violence that has marred the meeting in previous seasons. There were no immediate reports of trouble. On the pitch, though, West Ham showed little appetite for a fight in a timid first half.
Jenson Metcalfe set the tone inside 15 seconds, going in hard on the West Ham captain, Jarrod Bowen. West Ham did not put in a tackle at any point during the opening period, and Millwall made their dominance count.
The home side went ahead in the 16th minute with a suitably scruffy goal. Lyndon Dykes caused chaos with a long throw into the box and, with Mavropanos off the pitch after receiving treatment, nobody dealt with the ball. It fell to Mark Sykes, whose point-blank shot produced a superb stop from Mads Hermansen, but Taïryk Arconte reached the loose ball first and lifted it back across goal for Taylor to leather home at the far post.
West Ham needed 33 minutes to manage a touch inside the Millwall penalty area, and the home side kept pouring forward. In first-half stoppage time Sykes’s 30-yard drive was touched on to the crossbar by Hermansen, and there was still time before the break for Millwall to go two ahead when another long Dykes throw fell to Neghli, who tucked it away.
The West Ham manager, Nuno Espírito Santo, responded at the break by sending on Kanté and Pablo Felipe to add some muscle to a fragile side. Bowen finally got a shot away in the 52nd minute, with the Millwall goalkeeper, Filip Marschall, spilling the deflected effort on his Championship debut, and Kanté was just unable to get to the rebound. Marschall did well to keep out a close-range header from Pablo.
Marschall was beaten in the 74th minute when Kanté pinged a low drive into the corner. Bowen hit the side-netting, and with 10 minutes left West Ham hauled themselves level when Mavropanos headed home Manor Solomon’s cross.
West Ham looked the likeliest side to find a winner until Kanté, the last man, was sent off for pulling back Kyrell Lisbie as he raced through on goal.