West Ham managed to take three points from close rivals West Brom in one of the major scraps in the relegation dogfight with a 2-1 win at the Hawthorns. While at the top Arsenal took a step closer to retaining their premiership title this weekend, the Hammers may very well have taken a major step towards retaining their premiership status.
The three points which, although it keeps them in the drop zone, it puts distance between near rivals Albion and Sunderland and gets them closer to Bolton and Birmingham, who are also perilously close to relegation.
The first half was a nervy affair from two sides worried about dropping points to each other and in injury time in the first half Trevor Sinclair opened the scoring for Glen Roeder’s side.When Albion to come back after the break they upped the tempo considerably. Roeder then decided to bring on Jermain Defoe for the mercurial Paolo di Canio after three minutes of the second half, and the Italian was not shy about showing his displeasure as he stormed into the tunnel.
Within five minutes of the restart Daniele Dichio had gotten on the end of a high ball from Koumas and headed into the back of the net.
It fell to Trevor Sinclair to put the Hammers back in front and in the 67th minute he was first to react after Les Ferdinand’s initial shot came back off the bar.
Albion fans will be unhappy with the result as, apart from putting them in further relegation difficulty, they will claim they were hard done by. Two penalty appeals were turned down and two goals were ruled out as offside by referee Eddie Wolstenholme.
With ten games to go, nothing has been decided yet, but this may very well turn out, as the clichés say, to have been a crucial six-pointer.
Filed by Barry J Whyte
