Everton 2-1 West Ham United

  • by Staff Writer
  • Saturday, 22nd November 2014

West Ham's five match unbeaten run came to a predictable end at Goodison Park this afternoon - courtesy of another baffling decision by the match officials.

Mark Clattenburg has a long history of making game-changing decisions and so it was the case once again when he allowed Romelu Lukaku's clearly offside goal to stand.

And although the Hammers corrected that particular wrong shortly after the restart, Leon Osman's 76th minute strike was enough to earn the home side all three points and condemn Sam Allardyce's side to a first defeat since the end of September.

Sam Allardyce already had his hands tied before the interference of Clattenburg, having lost an incredible FIVE players during the international break - Alex Song, Cheik Kouyate, Enner Valencia, Diafra Sakho and Stewart Downing all being ruled out of contention.

That meant a first start of the season for Andy Carroll, who was to end the game deeply frustrated at the lack of service he was provided with during the afternoon - much the same as the rest of his team mates who were unable to grab a second equaliser, having initially restored parity 11 minutes after the half time break courtesy of a Jagielka own goal.

Everton started the game strongly and Mirallas, Lukaku and Naismith all squandered early chances to break the deadlock. When they finally did it was through Lukaku's 26th-minute offside effort; Ross Barkley's shot was blocked by James Collins before falling to the offside Belgian who slammed the ball into an empty net, with Adrian wrong-footed.


Lukaku clearly standing in an offside position before his 'goal'

Just 11 minutes later the striker was disappointed to find the net again only to see his effort ruled out - correctly this time - for offside.

Moments later Clattenburg again angered the travelling contingent when a dreadful challenge from behind on Morgan Amalfitano by Naismith resulted in a yellow card, not red. Annoyingly, Winston Reid was also booked in the melee for his reaction to Naismith's challenge - a caution that will see him miss next week's match against Newcastle having reached the five-game limit.

Just five minutes into the second half Sam Allardyce decided to throw caution to the wind and introduced Matt Jarvis and Mauro Zarate. Just five minutes later the Argentinian levelled the scores when his shot took a wicked deflection off Jagielka, looping over Howard into an empty net.

At that stage of the game it seemed as if only one side would win the game - that being the Hammers, who began to pile on the pressure as Everton visibly creaked. However a classic counter attack by the visitors was to cost West Ham a share of the spoils.

Having broken from a United attack, a long ball found Lukaku who laid the ball out wide before James Collins cynically attempted to prevent him from progressing any further. Eto'o made for the byeline before crossing for Osman, who steered the ball home at the far post.

Although West Ham huffed and puffed in search of what would have been a second equaliser, there was to be no repeat of the 2-2 draw at Stoke recently.

And whilst the Hammers will feel aggrieved at losing the game due to a(nother) dreadful call by a so-called top-class referee, Allardyce will at least be able to take comfort from another decent performance - even if it was one that ultimately ended in failure.




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