West Ham 2 Birmingham 0

West Ham started with Kovac, Diamanti, Mido and Ilunga. Diamanti was actually played on the left wing, where he looked much more effective.

The first half started quite well for West Ham. In the fist eight minutes Mido had a couple of early headers that didn't trouble Hart unduly. Diamanti also played Cole clean through on goal only for Cole to be given incorrectly offside.

In the 13th minute Tomkins had a shot from 25 yards saved by Hart diving to his left. In the 32nd minute Cole did well out wide left in the penalty area, worked the ball inside and fired across the goal, missing outside the right hand post.

At the other end West Ham occasionally looked nervy in defence and Birmingham had a couple of good efforts at goal. In the 28th minute Jerome shot just wide left from 12 yards and in the 38th minute a Philips effort from 20 yards forced a save from Green.

With seconds to go in the half Parker did really well to run at the Birmingham defence. He got to within a couple of yards of the Birmingham area before he was cynically brought down. Diamanti took the freekick and placed the ball beautifully in the top right hand corner of the net to give West Ham a deserved lead.


At the start of the second half Spector was brought on for Ilunga. The second half started rather slowly. In the 50th minute Ferguson shot well over from 25 yards. At the other end Diamanti had a couple of long range efforts, which didn't trouble Hart.

In the 66th minute Behrami played Faubert into the box on the right wing, Faubert drove to the byline and pulled the ball back into the six yard box, where Cole headed West Ham's second from four yards out.

After that Birmingham enjoyed a lot of possession but never really looked like scoring. Upson made a great lunging tackle on Philips four yards from the West Ham goal and there were some appeals for a penalty that wasn't given. Apart from that Ferguson and Gardner both had long range efforts that flew high and wide.


So Lawro called it right. West Ham finally got a win and have now climbed to 14th in the league. Come on you Irons!