Graham Potter can thank his lucky stars – and his makeshift attackers – that he got off to a winning start in the Premier League as West Ham United head coach.

Without injured trio Jarrod Bowen, Niclas Füllkrug and Michail Antonio, Potter named a starting team with no strikers for his first league game in charge of West Ham. With a bit of help from substitute Danny Ings and some comical Fulham mistakes, it just about paid off.

Midfielders Carlos Soler, Tomas Soucek and Lucas Paqueta were on target to help get Potter to a first win in front of a nervy home crowd, but Fulham goalkeeper Bernd Leno and midfielder Andreas Pereira played their part.

It was Pereira who gifted Soler West Ham’s opener and Leno who blundered for Paqueta to net the third goal that proved to be just about enough for the home side, who moved above London rivals Tottenham Hotspur in the table.

Marco Silva, the Fulham manager, said: “We were penalised by our own mistakes and it’s clearly our fault the way we lost the game. The best team didn’t win the game, the team that created more didn’t win the game. But we gave West Ham two goals. Of course, Leno and Andreas now are more disappointed than myself.”

West Ham will try to sign a striker this month, with Andre Silva the latest loan target, but Potter showed he can adapt in the meantime.

Soucek started as a makeshift attacker next to Paqueta, with Soler and Mohammed Kudus just behind them, and all four players were involved in West Ham’s three goals – from their only three shots on target.

Ings was sent on when Fulham threatened to rescue something from the game and he deserves credit for the role he played, along with Leno, in Paqueta’s strike. Alex Iwobi, who scored both of the visitors’ goals, did not deserve to finish on the losing side.

Potter argued that his players made their own luck: “I think they were gifts from our pressure. We forced the errors from our pressure, our pressing. If you don’t put any pressure on, maybe there’s no errors, but we forced the errors. We rode our luck at times, but, considering the attacking players we’ve got missing, I’m delighted with the three goals and the three points.”

For half-an-hour, West Ham had looked exactly what they were: an old team with no strikers. With an average age of 29 years and 26 days, West Ham’s starting XI was the oldest Potter had ever named for a Premier League game.

Harry Wilson hit the crossbar for Fulham in just the sixth minute, but a disallowed goal from Max Kilman, with West Ham’s first touch in the Fulham penalty area, brought the home side to life.

Potter had been out of luck in his first game in charge of West Ham, the FA Cup defeat by Aston Villa when the home side scored from a corner that should never have been given.

So he gratefully accepted the pieces of good fortune that came his way, the first being when Pereira passed the ball across his own area straight to Soler, who fired West Ham ahead.

Two minutes later, West Ham doubled their lead, as Kudus dribbled the ball across the edge of the West Ham area and passed to Soler, who crossed to the back post. Aaron Wan-Bissaka then picked out Soucek to net.

Fulham hit the bar for the second time in the 37th minute, when Raul Jimenez got his head to Iwobi’s cross in a warning to Potter’s team that they could not relax.

That was underlined six minutes after the restart, when Fulham pulled themselves back into the game thanks to Iwobi. The winger’s cross was intended for Jimenez, but the ball bounced past him and West Ham goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski into the net.

It was just the start to the second half Potter did not want and he reacted by calling for a striker from the substitutes’ bench – Ings – to replace Kudus.

His introduction was met by a lukewarm reception from the home crowd, but he was instrumental in the goal West Ham were gifted that should have killed Fulham’s hopes of a fight back. Joachim Andersen passed back to Leno, who was brilliantly closed down by Ings and Paqueta had the easiest of tasks of stroking the ball into an empty net.

Potter’s team should have been home and dry, and yet they contrived to let Fulham back in again from another Iwobi cross that ended up bouncing into the net.

Fabianski had to save from Jimenez to prevent the visitors netting an equaliser and substitute Adama Traore blazed over in stoppage time. No wonder Silva was left shaking his head.