IT’S NO JOKE AS ANDY HAS LAST LAUGH
ANDY CARROLL scored for the first time since April Fool’s Day to spare West Ham the ignominy of becoming the punch-line in a joke about too much rest in the festive fixture schedule.
The Hammers trailed at half-time to a deflected goal scored by James McClean as West Bromwich Albion defied their concerns about a second game in 48 hours.
Carroll equalised and slid in the winning goal from an acute angle in stoppage time to take his side out of the bottom three.
West Ham had not played since St Stephen’s Day but started as if they had used the spare time to erase from memory all the good habits they have picked up since David Moyes took charge.
Moyes shook his team up at halftime, switched formation and Carroll finally contributed something to the season other than a debate about how much a jumping player needs to use his arms for leverage.
West Brom, who complained to the Premier League about the scheduling of this game, are now winless in 20 Premier League games.
West Ham will play again at Tottenham tomorrow.
West Brom manager Alan Pardew, up against his former club, saw his side make a positive start. Salomon Rondon might have given them an early lead when he attempted to chip Adrian. The goalkeeper was out of his goal but Rondon’s effort was too heavy and dropped on to the roof of the net.
Ben Foster reacted quickly to beat out a crisp half-volley by Manuel Lanzini at the other end when Albion failed to clear a cross from Pablo Zabaleta.
Moyes recalled Carroll to start his first game for more than a month, one of two changes to the West Ham team which conceded a stoppagetime equaliser at Bournemouth on St Stephen’s Day, but the extra rest was no help as they slipped behind on the half-hour.
McClean met little resistance as he moved inside from the left, drifted past Winston Reid and manoeuvred the ball back on to his left foot before taking aim from 25 yards. Angelo Ogbonna and Pedro Obiang made belated attempts to close him down but only managed to deflect the shot and leave Adrian helpless as the ball swerved over his head. Foster protected the lead with another fine save from Lanzini, diving low to his left to frustrate the Argentine after another West Ham raid down the right and a cross by Cheikhou Kouyate.
The Albion keeper then dived bravely at the feet of Kouyate to beat the midfielder to a knock-down from Carroll.
The home crowd booed their team off at half-time and, having seen his side dominated in midfield, Moyes sent on captain Mark Noble and reverted to a back-four.
West Ham were almost level within seconds of the restart when Carroll stretched to reach a splendid cross from Marko Arnautovic but could not hit the target.
Carroll did find the net when he climbed above Jonny Evans and Kieran Gibbs to meet a left-wing cross from Aaron Cresswell with a firm header.
Both teams had chances to win it but it was Carroll who did for West Ham with his second in added time.