Boro 0 West Ham 1

YYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

Boro had the best of the first half, creating the more chances and having more possession of the ball. They put five players across the midfield and the West Ham defence were forced to knock hopeful balls over the top. Harewood and Ashton however were unable to win their fair share of these long balls as the Boro defence coped well with the arial battle. In fact the West Ham strikers only real contribution to the first half was Ashton breaking Schwarzer's cheek bone.

Apart from the loss of their goalkeeper the other regret Boro would have had was that they didn't create more. Their two clearest chances both were headed over the bar, Queudrue from a corner and Hasselbaink from a right wing cross. The best chance for West Ham came five minutes from the break, when Reo-Coker won a battle with Boateng in the Boro penalty area and the ball fell to Benayoun. But the Israeli shot his half volley a couple of yards over the bar.

In the second half West Ham came out flying. They had Boro penned back in their own penalty area for the first fifteen minutes. On the 54th minute Ashton headed against the bar from a corner and four minutes later headed straight at the goalie from another corner. On the 60th minute Reo-Coker got the ball on the left wing, beat Boateng and unleashed a shot that just missed the right hand post.

On 77 minutes the long ball finally worked for West Ham. Ferdinand knocked a 70 yrd ball forward, Ashton won the header on the edge of the box and Harewood ran onto it to shoot into the back of the net with his left foot from just inside the area. West Ham then faced a frantic 15 minutes as Boro threw everything forward.

On 82 minutes Hasselbaink ran with the ball straight at the West Ham box and Collins brought him down on the edge of the box. From the resulting freekick Hislop saved well diving to his right. On 88 minutes Macccorone shot wide from ten yards out. For some strange reason five minutes extra time was then added on. In extra time Downing shot over form a freekick from the edge of the box and Riggott had an excellent effort from five yards out with only Hislop to beat but he shot wide.

Come on you Irons!