West Ham's chances of qualifying for the Champions League for the first time were damaged by a 1-0 home loss to Everton in the Premier League on Sunday, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin scoring the first-half winner.
The England striker moved onto 16 league goals for the season by running onto Ben Godfrey's slide-rule pass and slipping a low finish past West Ham goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski in the 24th.
Everton celebrated an 11th away win of the campaign and closed to within three points of fifth-place West Ham, which failed to take advantage of top-four rival Leicester's surprising 4-2 loss to lowly Newcastle on Friday.
Leicester, which has dropped to fourth place, is five points ahead of West Ham with three games remaining. Liverpool is a point and a place further back, and has a game in hand.
West Ham's remaining fixtures look easier than Leicester's, however, with games to come against Brighton, West Bromwich Albion and Southampton. Leicester still has to play Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham.
Everton can move level on points with West Ham by winning its game in hand, against Aston Villa on Thursday, and has benign-looking fixtures against Wolverhampton and already-relegated Sheffield United to come.
{{/usCountry}}Everton can move level on points with West Ham by winning its game in hand, against Aston Villa on Thursday, and has benign-looking fixtures against Wolverhampton and already-relegated Sheffield United to come.
{{/usCountry}}Both teams struck the post in an end-to-end second half — Vladimir Coufal off a low drive for West Ham and substitute Josh King with a header for Everton.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.