Rooney: It’s my best goal
Incredible strike from half-way seals hat-trick and heaps misery on Moyes
WAYNE ROONEY has hailed the third goal of his first Everton hattrick as the best goal he has scored.
Rooney scored from his own half by catching Joe Hart off his line after the West Ham goalkeeper had rushed out to close down Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
Hart dispossessed Calvert-Lewin with a sliding tackle but only diverted the ball into the path of Rooney, who had time and space to shoot.
Rooney drilled an inch-perfect strike first-time and despite the best efforts of defender Angelo Ogbonna to intercept the effort with his hand, it glided into the open net.
When asked whether he had ever scored a better goal, Rooney said: “I don’t think so. It’s one of if not the best goal I’ve ever scored.
“I think I hit it as well as I’ve ever kicked a football. To make it my third goal, my first hat-trick for Everton, I’m delighted.”
Rooney, Everton’s stand-in captain for the night, had already put his side 2-0 ahead with a brace before his third came midway through the second half.
The 32-year-old saw a penalty saved but scored a cushioned header from the rebound, then doubled his tally with a slide finish shortly after.
An Ashley Williams header rounded off Everton’s 4-0 win in David Unsworth’s final game in caretaker charge with Sam Allardyce last night handed an 18-month deal. The win lifts Everton to 13th while David Moyes’s West Ham languish in 18th.
EVERTON 4 WESTHAMUTD 0
WITH respect to Sam Allardyce, there were plenty of Everton fans ready to cancel the club’s emergency call on the back of this timely victory. Wayne Rooney proved he is well equipped to lead a salvage operation with the first hat-trick of his Everton career.
Allardyce, the specialist fire-fighter, may not have too many flames to snuff out after all. Certainly Everton’s relegations fears may have been overplayed.
An initial target of survival may be setting the bar too low, the new manager comforted by the reality there are far worse teams than Everton.
West Ham fall into that category. They were dire in the first half, a brief second-half improvement ended by Rooney’s gem of a third and Ashley Williams’s header.
David Unsworth’s spell as a caretaker ended with a smile, a wave to those chanting his name throughout the second half. As Rooney inspired his side – his extraordinary third from his own half will not be bettered this season – Unsworth must have considered if he had too hastily left the former England captain out recently.
His welcoming gift to the manager is a hungrier player. Rooney played like he had plenty to prove. For David Moyes, this was another horrific homecoming, following defeats here during stints at Manchester United and Sunderland.
Allardyce watched on from the directors’ box awaiting formal confirmation of his appointment, so it would be a stretch to credit him for the Everton upturn. Nevertheless, there were plenty in blue jerseys whose application was several notches above recent fixtures.
CLASSIEST
Playing deeper, Rooney was the classiest, although for most of the evening he was given more time to pick a pass than he could have imagined, West Ham ensuring their heat maps would need de-icing.
Rooney’s first owed plenty to good fortune. Joe Hart obliged after 18 minutes, his surge from goal colliding with Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Rooney’s penalty was saved, but he was able to head in the rebound.
The second, after 28 minutes, followed a well-crafted move on the Everton right involving Jonjoe Kenny and Tom Davies, the midfielder picking out Rooney, who was lethal with a side-footed finish.
There was a response early in the second half from the visitors. There had to be.
Moyes replaced Angelo Obiang for Diafra Sakho and West Ham finally located some urgency. Aaron Cresswell struck the bar with an angled drive, but the deficit should have been halved six minutes later.
Williams’s clumsy tackle on Sakho was penalised, but Manuel Lanzini’s penalty was pushed aside by Jordan Pickford. Had he not done so the panic inside Goodison would have been excruciating.
Instead, Rooney spectacularly struck again. Hart thought he had seen off the danger, clearing as Calvert-Lewin chased a long ball. Instead, he struck at Rooney, who hit first time from just inside his own half. Williams made it four from Gylfi Sigurdsson’s corner.
“You’ve got Sam Allardyce,” sang the West Ham fans at the start of the evening. Out of respect, the Gwladys Street refrained from pointing out they did not want their old manager back, either. Everton have endured a torrid spell, but on this evidence there is little doubt which of the new appointments has the biggest problems staying up. (© Daily Telegraph, London)