Late goal rush spares Hammers blushes

12:15am Thursday 28th August 2008

West Ham 4
Macclesfield Town 1
(after extra time)
(Carling Cup, second round)

WEST HAM saved themselves cup embarrassment with an extra-time win over lowly Macclesfield.

For 74 minutes, the Silkmen threatened to inflict the east Londoners' biggest cup upset in recent memory, and heap more pressure on under-fire boss Alan Curbishley in the process.

Macclesfield-born Gareth Evans forever marked his name in the club's history by giving the League Two side a fifth minute lead, the forward nodding in Ahmed Deen's cross.

From then on the Silkmen - winless in League Two having conceded eight goals and scoring none - made it anything but easy for their more illustrious Premier League hosts.

Indeed, a late goal blitz, and favourable statistics of 22 corners and 16 shots, does little to hide the fact that the Hammers struggled for long periods against a team 75 places below them in the football league pyramid.

It was not until defender Izak Reid was sent off for a second bookable offence late on in normal time that the Irons finally started to break the minnows down.

Moments previously, Lee Bowyer - making his first start in more than six months - had spared the blushes by heading Julien Faubert's precise cross home from six yards out.

The goal and sending off understandably deflated Macclesfield, who did well to hold on to the 90-minute mark.

Keeper Jon Brain played a big part in that, making some fine saves to keep the Irons out. His full-reaching dive to turn Bowyer's powerful header round the post early in extra time in particular was brilliant.

But he could do little to keep out Carlton Cole on 100 minutes.

The striker eased the tension for the 10,055 crowd - the lowest at the Boleyn Ground for almost 16 years - by bundling home Dean Ashton's header down from virtually on the goal line.

Youngster Zavon Hines then made the game safe when he marked his senior debut with a goal, tapping in Ashton's cross-shot from close range on 105 minutes.

And Kyel Reid wrapped up the victory three minutes from time, cutting in from the left wing and ramming home into the bottom corner.

For Curbishley - for now at least - the knives are away.

West Ham: Green, Behrami (Hines 27), Davenport, Upson, McCartney (Reid 55), Faubert, Mullins, Bowyer, Boa Morte, Sears (Cole 58), Ashton. Subs Not Used: Lastuvka, Parker, Widdowson, Spence.

Around the site