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West Ham strolled through to the third round of the Capital One Cup after a comfortable win over League One side Crewe at the Boleyn Ground tonight.

A goal either side of the half time whistle was enough for Sam Allardyce's side to secure passage through to the next round of the competition, the draw for which takes places on Thursday evening.

Former Crewe striker Nicky Maynard put the Hammers ahead shortly before the break, finishing a well-worked move between tonight's front three of Modibo Maiga, Ricardo Vaz Te and former Alex player Nicky Maynard.

New boy Maiga and play-off Final hero Vaz Te combined well before setting up former Crewe striker Maynard who finished with some aplomb into the bottom corner - before celebrating his effort in muted style out of respect to his former employers.

The deciding goal arrived just nine minutes after the restart and came from the boot of recent arrival Modibo Maiga, scoring his first goal for West Ham. Crewe 'keeper Martin failed to properly deal with captain Kevin Nolan's fierce effort and Maiga was on hand to stroke the ball home from close range.

Sam Allardyce rang the changes from Saturday's hugely disappointing 3-0 reversal at Swansea by giving first appearances of the season to Danny Potts, Stephen Henderson, Jordan Spence, Rob Hall and Gary O'Neill - plus full debuts to Alou Diarra and Academy products George Moncur and Matthias Fanimo.

The draw for the third round of the competition is due to take place on Thursday.

West Ham Utd: Henderson, O'Brien, Spence, Diarra, Potts, Taylor, O'Neil, Nolan, Vaz Te, Maiga, Maynard.

Subs: Spiegel, Driver, Demel, Moncur, Fanimo, Hall, McCallum.

Crewe Alexandra: Martin, Davis, Ellis, Bunn, Robertson, Mellor, Westwood, Murphy, Moore, Leitch-Smith, M.Clayton.

Subs: Garratt, Dugdale, Turton, Guthrie, Ray, Osman, Daniels.

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