West Ham 1 West Brom 1
A game of two faces from West Bromwich Albion ended with a share of the points, as the visitors staged an uncharacteristic second-half turnaround to salvage a deserved draw.
Albion's equaliser may have been an own goal – Winston Reid deflecting a shot by Rickie Lambert into the net in the 50th minute – but it rewarded a radical improvement on a first period in which West Ham looked like the only team with real ambitions of scoring and should have had more than a splendid goal by Mauro Zárate to prove it.
Slaven Bilic’s team came into this game on a downer, their early season exuberance having been punctured by a three match winless streak and the long-term loss of Dmitri Payet, described by a sorrowful Bilic as the team’s best player. Mark Noble was also missing, through suspension, and Alex Song was only fit enough to start on the bench. And Albion clearly arrived with the intention of depressing the hosts further, adopting the same stultifying approach they tend to use on all their travels.
If you only ever watched Albion away, you would deduce that Tony Pulis’s wildest dream is an endless traffic jam. His team are not exactly expansive at home but away their game plan is always based around the erection of roadblocks. Sometimes it works – they had kept four clean sheets in their six away league matches prior to this one – and it briefly threatened to pay off here, too, as the opening minutes were so dull that it was quickly cheerio to the crowd’s pre-match cheer.
But the home team soon brought the smiles back. In particular, Manuel Lanzini crackled with creativity, his movement and trickery trumping Albion's spoiling tactics. Mind you, it took a fright to stoke West Ham into action, as Salomón Rondón almost capped a fleeting Albion attack with a goal in the 13th minute, his ferocious shot from the corner of the box fizzing just past the far post. Then West Ham took over, their running, passing and imagination making the visitors look like little more bouncers amid a whirr of party people.
When Gareth McAuley was sanctioned for being too forceful in his attempts to subdue Diafra Sakho in the 17th minute, Zárate stepped up and curled an exquisite free-kick into the top corner from 25 yards. Albion had not previously conceded a first-half goal away in the league this season but they should have been further behind before the break.
Cheikhou Kouyaté glanced a header wide from eight yards after an excellent cross from Aaron Cresswell. Lanzini then ambushed Claudio Yacob in midfield, jiggled forward and nearly bamboozled the goalkeeper from 25 yards, but Boaz Myhill managed to improvise a save with his feet. The goalkeeper foiled the same player again five minutes later, Lanzini letting fly from closer this time after a lovely run by Zárate.
Albion were so impotent going forward that further misses before the break by Sakho and Victor Moses did not necessarily look costly. But Albion went into the changing room and emerged transformed.
Pulis used the break to throw on another striker in place of Stéphane Sessègnon, with Lambert chosen ahead of Saido Berahino despite the latter's record of four goals in five previous games against West Ham. That decision was vindicated five minutes into the second half when Darren Fletcher chested the ball to Lambert and the striker unleashed a shot from 20 yards that wound up in the back of the net thanks to a big deflection off Reid.
Suddenly the contest throbbed and for a while the sides traded blows. Jonas Olsson had to make a timely tackle to prevent Sakho from turning in a fine cross by Cresswell, and Adrián then had to pull off a superb save to deny Rondón, who was poised to celebrate after meeting a cross from Fletcher with a powerful header.
Zárate tried to repeat his free-kick feat in the 63rd minute but this time Myhill pushed his shot away. That chance came via a counter-attack, Albion having now established a degree of territorial superiority. But that did not necessarily perturb West Ham, who have the speed to cause trouble on the break. Moses led a lightning raid in the 71st minute, charging 50 yards forward before slipping the ball to Sakho, who let fly from 15 yards. Olsson slid into to divert the shot into the sidenetting.
Olsson was in the way again in the 82nd minute, thwarting Andy Carroll, who, like Michail Antonio, was introduced to help West Ham’s quest for a first win since that rousing downing of Chelsea over a month ago. As West Ham finished strongly, Antonio volleyed inches wide from 16 yards and Cresswell went close from a free-kick. But in the end the hosts had to make do with a point that will please Pulis much more.
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