West Ham 1 Everton 2

Zola brought back Parker and dropped Noble for Jimenez. Hines and Spector replaced the injured Cole and Ilunga.

West Ham started by far the brighter side. They dominated the first twenty minutes without creating many clear cut chances. Their best chance came in the 7th minute when Faubert fired in a low cross from the right wing. Franco got to the ball first but his glancing shot from six yards missed far right.

West Ham's only other chance in the first half hour was an effort from wide left and close to the byline from 9 yrds which was straight at the keeper. In the 26th minute West Ham failed to clear the ball on the edge of the box. Cahill won the ball and passed the ball to Saha who shot first time from the edge of the area straight into the bottom left hand corner of the goal. Everton therefore scored with their first shot of the game.

After the goal Everton sat back even more. West Ham struggled to find any space in the final third and only managed to create chances from a couple of freekicks. However Jimez shot one straight at the wall and Da Costa fired the other well wide from 30 yards.

Everton did push forward a bit in the last minutes of the half and Saha headed a corner wide from 9 yards and Cahill shot wide from the same distance.


Stanilas came on at the start of the second half for Collison. The passage of play in the second half followed the same pattern as the first. West Ham dominated possession and territory but never really looked like they could open up the defence.

In the 61st minute the ball fell to Stanislas on the edge of the area and his shot flew just wide left. Then, just as in the first half, Everton scored with their first real attack. Gosling shot from 8 yards to the left of the goal. Green saved the shot but the ball rebounded back to Gosling who then scored with his second attempt.

West Ham however responded immediately. Diamanti played a long ball forward to Stanislas in the area. Staislas chipped Howard and Hibbert running back could only smash the ball into the net in trying to stop the ball on the line.

After that Diamanti drove West Ham forward and West Ham created a number of opportunities to equalise. In the 71st minute Diamanti broke in from the right wing and tried a curling shot from the edge of the area, which just missed the top left of the goal. In the 74th minute Parker played Hines into the box and his toe-poked effort just missed wide left. A minute later and from around the penalty spot Hines then shot wide right.

In the third minute of extra time Parker dinked a nice little ball into the path of Stanislas but from three yards out and under pressure he couldn't get anything on the ball.

West Ham certainly missed Cole's fire power up front and will be disappointed to have lost to two sucker punches from a largely defensive Everton side.