Match report:
FULL TIME: Everton 4-0 West Ham United
And so Everton caretaker boss David Unsworth does indeed go out on a high. He leaves the team in 13th spot, looking so much more comfortable than they did a couple of hours ago. And it’s all thanks to hat-trick hero Wayne Rooney, who scored a goal-of-the-season contender from inside his own half, a first-time drive of poise, cheek and technique that’ll be replayed over and over again. Sam Allardyce smiles broadly in the stand: he’s picked a good time to take over. By contrast, poor David Moyes doesn’t look quite so chuffed: his out-of-sorts West Ham side have just been thrashed by a team who had themselves been low on confidence, and remain floundering in 18th. A relegation struggle stretches out ahead of them.
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90 min +2: Everton stroke it around in the insouciant style.
90 min +1: Calvert-Lewin is replaced by Nikola Vlasic.
90 min: There will be three added minutes. It’s 180 seconds which can’t tick round quickly enough for David Moyes.
89 min: A corner for West Ham out on the right. Rice sends a header sailing miles over the bar. Then Lennon is replaced, to appreciative applause, by Ademola Lookman.
87 min: West Ham’s travelling support give “Sack the board” a quick trill.
85 min: Rooney is given a standing ovation as he leaves the pitch. He’s earned it all right. Beni Baningime takes his place.
84 min: Everton play a little keep-ball in the midfield. Sigurdsson and Calvert-Lewin suddenly pick up the pace, trying to open West Ham up down the inside left. Not quite.
82 min: Goodison is quiet again. But it’s a satisfied purr around this grand old stadium. How quickly the mood changes. What a goal Wayne Rooney scored to effect that change!
80 min: What price Pickford’s penalty save now? West Ham came out for the second half with the jets at full blast, and were excellent for a while, but they look a relegation rabble right now. It’s a thin line.
GOAL! Everton 4-0 West Ham United (Williams 78)
And suddenly this is a rout. The corner’s swung in from the right. Williams gets in front of Rice, eight yards out, in line with the near post. He flicks towards the top left. Hart’s picking the ball out of his net again.
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77 min: Everton come at West Ham en masse. Davies powers towards the area. He slides the ball right for Kenny, who drills low into the box. Calvert-Lewin meets it on the penalty spot, first time, but his blast towards the bottom right is deflected out by Reid, another heroic slide. But Reid really has done himself, and is forced to go off. Declan Rice comes on in his stead.
75 min: Calvert-Lewin very nearly strips Reid for pace down the left. Reid stops him with a last-ditch slide tackle; the Everton man would have been clear down the wing otherwise. But saving a free run on goal has come at a cost, as Reid springs up and feels his hamstring. He’ll keep going for now.
73 min: Everton are cruising now. Lennon dribbles down the left and nearly breaks through, but the move peters out. “Who’d have thought that, with all that transfer activity, the most important signing of Everton’s summer was Joe Hart for West Ham?” quips Gary Naylor.
70 min: And here’s the other side of Rooney, deliberately raking his studs down the back of Lanzini’s leg. It’s a yellow for sure. A red wouldn’t be completely outrageous. But the referee doesn’t do anything.
68 min: Wow!
ROONEY FROM THE HALFWAY LINE! Everton 3-0 West Ham United (Rooney 66)
Calvert_Lewin chases a lost cause down the inside-left channel. Hart races from his area, sliding in to hook the ball back upfield. Rooney, just inside the centre circle on the left, meets the clearance first time, driving it over the stranded Hart and into the empty net from his own half! What technique! What vision! What a way to complete his first-ever Everton hat-trick!
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66 min: West Ham continue to ping it around. Antonio suddenly bursts down the inside-right channel. He’s got men in the middle, but drags the ball behind them all. Bad mistake, because ...
63 min: Everton have hardly touched the ball since the restart. West Ham are dominating the middle of the park. The home fans aren’t particularly happy with things right now.
61 min: David Moyes, perhaps mindful of keeping his team’s collective chin up after the penalty miss, makes another change, swapping Arnautovic for Antonio.
59 min: Lanzini takes, smacking it towards the bottom left. It’s not a brilliant spot kick, well inside the post, but not terrible either. However Pickford gets down and with a strong hand pushes the ball away from danger! West Ham’s chance to get back into this game is spurned! Pickford has done his mate Williams a big favour there, because the challenge to concede the spot kick was a nonsense.
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Penalty for West Ham!
58 min: Sakho and Arnautovic take turns to hold the ball up purposefully on the right-hand edge of the Everton box. They can’t quite open the hosts up. But no matter! They come straight back at them. Sakho holds the ball up again, with his back to goal. Williams clumsily scythes him down from behind. A no-brainer for the ref. Penalty!
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56 min: Lennon and Kenny combine down the right. But the street of Kenny is a dead end, and he runs the ball out of play. Still, that’s a little period of play in West Ham territory; Everton need the breather.
54 min: Davies is retrospectively booked for a late tackle on Kouyate, the infringement coming in the middle of that West Ham flurry.
52 min: Lanzini cuts in from the left and sends a swerving riser goalwards from 25 yards. Pickford parries well. Then another phase of attack, as Lanzini rolls a pass towards Cresswell down the inside-left channel. Cresswell sends a screamer towards the top right. Pickford is beaten, but the ball clips the crossbar instead of nestling into the corner. West Ham are so unlucky not to be right back in this match. They’ve been a different team since the restart.
50 min: Zabaleta and Cresswell take turns to wheech the ball into the Everton mixer from either flank. Everton manage to clear the balls easily enough, but they’re soon forced to defend again as West Ham come straight back at them. The Goodison crowd are a bit agitated at this state of affairs.
49 min: Everton are being pinned back in their own box right now. West Ham are in the zone for the first time this evening. Pickford still hasn’t had his hands seriously warmed, but small acorns and all that.
48 min: Everton fail to deal with a long hoof into their box. Martina and Sakho both miss their headers on the edge of the area. Arnautovic is therefore afforded a little space in the right of the box. He looks to curl one onto Sakho’s head, six yards out, but the ball’s too close to Pickford, who picks it off.
46 min: The early signs are good for West Ham. A one-two between Ayew and Sakho earns a corner down the right within 20 seconds of the restart. The set piece leads to nothing, but West Ham already look a bit more lively. Moyes with a few paint-stripping words at half-time, one would imagine.
And we’re off again! West Ham get the ball rolling, having made one change: Sakho comes on for Obiang. It’s a positive move. It needed to be. But will it make any difference? West Ham were toothless in the first half.
The mood from both camps at half time? Contrasting, to say the least. First up, here’s Ian the Esherhammer: “We have a keeper weak on one side and can’t kick. A back four containing probably the worst Italian international in history. A midfield that seems to have forgotten how to run and pass. Centre forwards that are either mad (Sakho) or knackered (Carroll). And the two most expensive players in the club’s history? Arnie and Ayew? £44m on decorations when we’ve spent bugger all on foundations. I’ve not seen worse in 40 years.”
Meanwhile here’s Barry McAuley’s verdict on all-new mid-table Everton: “Just another seven goals and Everton could be up to 12th for the start of the new regime. And lest we forget, an international manager with a 100% record at that level! A real signal of intent by the Everton board.”
Everton don’t really do relegation, anyway, as a rule. The last time they fell out of the top division was in 1951, when they did so in some style, thrashed 6-0 by Sheffield Wednesday when a point would have saved their skin. “To abuse Everton at this stage would be like picking up a person badly mauled from a street accident and reading him a lecture on the folly of jaywalking.” A contemporary take by your super soaraway Manchester Guardian, as referenced in The Title: The Story of the First Division. Happier times also feature: Dixie Dean, the Golden Vision, Howard Kendall, all that. But still, 6-0.
HALF TIME: Everton 2-0 West Ham United
West Ham won here from two goals down in March 2016. But Dimitri Payet isn’t around these days. It’s difficult to see where any comeback would come from tonight. Everton, after a slightly nervous start, have wrested total control of this game. The way things are going, they’ll be in mid-table in an hour’s time, and West Ham will remain in the dropzone.
45 min +1: The corner leads to a messy melee in the Everton six-yard box. Zabaleta tries to latch onto the ball as it bounces around freely, but he can’t get near enough to give it a whack, and Everton clear their lines.
45 min: Lanzini dribbles down the right and is brought down by Sigurdsson a few yards from the corner flag. Cresswell loops it deep; Kenny heads out for a corner. West Ham really need something before the break to raise their spirits.
44 min: Davies embarks on another wander towards the West Ham area. No pressure on him whatsoever. He tries to thread a pass down the inside-right channel to release Lennon into the area. It’s not quite right, but not far away either.
43 min: West Ham knock it around the middle of the park awhile, but go absolutely nowhere. The stuffing really has been knocked out of them.
41 min: Holgate very nearly tees up Ayew on the edge of the Everton box, fluffing a simple header back to his keeper by knocking the ball straight up in the air. But Pickford is wise to what’s unfolding, and is quickly out to gather the ball before the striker can get anywhere near it. Pickford is the real deal.
39 min: Now it’s the turn of Davies to go down in the West Ham area, under a shoulder charge from Ogbonna. Nothing wrong with that. But Everton have a spring in their step. They’re putting West Ham under all sorts of pressure. The visitors have no answer.
37 min: In great contrast to West Ham, Everton now look full of beans. Calvert-Lewin chases a long pass down the inside-left channel. He goes down under a challenge from Arnautovic, and claims a penalty, but it’s shoulder to shoulder and Michael Oliver isn’t having a bar of it. The correct decision.
35 min: Sigurdsson harries and hassles down the left, but can’t find a man in the middle. Arnautovic looks to break upfield, and is tugged back by the frustrated Icelandic international, who is booked for his trouble.
33 min: West Ham are struggling to keep hold of the ball right now. Rooney’s second has seriously knocked their already fragile confidence. Zabaleta, who wants to watch himself having already been booked, goes in heavy on Lennon. No foul, but an unnecessary risk in the middle of the park. Arnautovic tries to get things going down the right but runs the ball out of play.
31 min: From a tangle in the midfield, Masuaku breaks at great speed down the left touchline. It’s a determined run, and he whips in a vicious cross. But nobody in claret has kept up with him, and Pickford is able to claim the ball without any problem.
30 min: Obiang is fortunate to escape a booking for a clumsy, if not malicious, clank on Davies in the centre circle.
GOAL! Everton 2-0 West Ham United (Rooney 28)
What a return to the side by Wayne Rooney! Everton’s talisman and captain makes it two, sweeping in a simple chance from eight yards into the bottom left. It had been set up by Davies, who had powered into the box from the right and crossed low. But what were West Ham doing? Davies was completely untracked; Rooney was totally unmarked in the middle of the box! Appalling defending. But Everton did what they had to do. Goodison jumps again!
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26 min: Zabaleta is booked for tap-tackling Sigurdsson on the ankles when writhing about on the floor. The resulting free kick, pumped into the box, sees Lennon clipping Masuaku to the floor. Pressure off.
25 min: Arnautovic and Kouyate combine well down the inside-right channel, pressurising Everton in their own box. The ball eventually squeaks through harmlessly to Pickford, but West Ham have responded reasonably, if not marvellously, well to falling behind.
23 min: Cresswell, Masuaku and Lanzini buzz down the left to earn yet another West Ham corner. Holgate nuts that one upfield without fuss or ceremony. Everton try to break upfield through Rooney, but there are no options, and possession is given up quickly.
21 min: The penalty incident and goal apart, this game has been a shapeless mess. Everton fans will care not a jot. “As a West Ham fan I think Gary Naylor has got it right on BFS,” writes Tom Shaw. “I was one of a minority of West Ham fans who was sorry to see him go and I thought he was treated disgracefully by our supporters who seemed to be under some illusion that we were just the right manager away from being a Champions League team. We were not, and neither are Everton. At the moment all either side can hope for is a bit of mid-table stability. I’d also have taken Benitez, though I think Moyes is a good appointment for us.”
20 min: West Ham come straight back at Everton, earning themselves a second corner out on the left. Lanzini swings it in. Pickford claims it easily. Goodison is making some noise now.
GOAL! Everton 1-0 West Ham United (Rooney 18)
It’s a dismal penalty by Rooney, soft towards the bottom left. Hart does brilliantly to get down and parry, but the ball balloons up, allowing Rooney to cushion a simple header into the unguarded net from a couple of yards!
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Penalty for Everton!
17 min: Good work by Kenny down the right earns Everton’s first corner of the night. West Ham clear it easily. They should break upfield, but faff about and allow Everton to come back at them. Rooney slips a ball through the middle for Calvert-Lewin. It’s not a perfect pass, but it breaks to the striker, who is clean through! He tries to round Hart on the right, and is upended by the keeper. Penalty! Hart might have got a slight touch to the ball, but he also brought down the man on the follow-through.
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15 min: A West Ham free kick from the middle of the park is witlessly booted into the Everton box. Martina should let it fly out for a goal kick, but heads out for a throw instead. West Ham send a couple of balls into the box from the right. Kenny heads one up straight into the air. Then Pickford does very well to claim a fierce cross by Zabaleta. Everton don’t look particularly confident at the back, like that’s breaking news.
13 min: Martina bombs down the left and loops long. Davies, on the right-hand edge of the West Ham D, nearly takes control and bursts into the box. But he can’t quite manage it. Still, this is better from Everton.
12 min: Calvert-Lewin, chasing another direct pass, puts pressure on Ogbonna down the Everton right. He very nearly nips in ahead of the defender on the edge of the area, but Ogbonna stands firm, turns and blooters clear. That’s calm defending, but decent pressure from the young Everton striker as well.
10 min: Rooney again tries to get a sleepy looking Everton going. But he’s probing from a very deep position on the left. He attempts to burst infield and drive a pass down the inside-left channel, but his rangefinder is off at the minute.
8 min: Masuaku sprints down the left and earns the first corner of the game. Lanzini curls it into the mixer; it’s cleared easily enough by Holgate. The anxiety and uncertainty continues to quietly crackle around Goodison.
7 min: Wayne Rooney is currently quarterbacking from the left-back position. Everton are not doing much in attack, in other words. But they are still seeing most of the ball.
5 min: The atmosphere has fallen flat quite quickly. Goodison is understandably collectively nervous after the fiasco against Atalanta last week. One woman was spotted in the stands waving a sign on which she stated her support for Everton, but not for Allardyce. There’s not much happening on the pitch, by the way; you’re missing nowt.
3 min: Everton are enjoying the lion’s share in the early exchanges. Not to any great effect. Holgate smacks a long ball down the right, but there’s nobody in blue anywhere near it, and that’s a goal kick for West Ham.
And we’re off! Everton get the ball rolling. They immediately knock it long. Rooney, out on the left, rakes a diagonal ball into the box, in the general direction of Lennon. Cresswell rises highest and guides the ball back to Hart. The hosts on the front foot, early doors, in the no-nonsense style. It should be noted that Big Sam hasn’t actually taken over yet.
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The teams are out! Everton are in their famous royal blue, while West Ham turn out in their storied claret and blue. Everyone looking good. A rare old atmosphere. And Goodison Park is resplendent under the floodlights, as it always is. It might not be the grandest ground in the country any more, but it’s dripping with character. You can’t buy or build that sort of thing. It’s possible one or two West Ham fans will have an opinion on this subject. But never mind that! We’ll be off in a minute!
David Moyes, returning to his old stomping ground, is asked whether this is a night for sentiment. “No, not at all. We’ve got to make sure we get three points, make sure we get a good result. So no, I’m here to do a job. We’ll build on our performance against Leicester, we took some things from it, but we need to play much better, get three points on the board, though one was good. Andy Carroll went over on his knee, which is frustrating but it happens. Everton have a few injuries too. It’s good that Sam is here, I’m glad he’s back in work, he’s a great guy and a very good manager. I hope it doesn’t motivate them, I want our team to be winning, I’m really only concentrating on West Ham. I had some great times here and I’ll meet the people after the game and have a drink with them. But my focus is on West Ham.”
Big Sam: your views. “I might be the only Evertonian pleased with Big Sam’s appointment,” announces Gary Naylor, who may or may not have spent all afternoon trawling the message boards, Twitter, etc. “The last two managers (three if you count Unsworth) have overseen teams that, on the pitch at least, have gone off the rails, losing discipline, shape and morale. If that happens again, but this time starting from 17th not 7th, where would we be? But I’d have moved heaven and earth to get Rafa Benitez (still would next summer) and I suspect I’ll be in a minority of one on that.”
Meanwhile here’s Matt Dony. “Five cryogenic chambers, one dependable centre half, and 20,000 packs of industrial-strength gum seems a reasonable shopping list for Big Sam (19.23). Don’t forget ‘one pint of wine’, though.”
David Unsworth speaks ahead of his last game as caretaker. “The motivation is to play well, there’s a new manager watching. All the players have to impress him, but we have to impress our fans too. That’s the most important thing, we need to get a win. We’ve been a bit unfortunate to pick up injuries, but that’s part of the game. There are other players who are given an opportunity, so the onus is on them to perform. I’d like to have had a high in every single game, I can assure you. But of course I want to go out on a high, I want the club to win three points. I want everyone associated with Everton to go home with a smile on their face, and we will do our very best.”
Incidentally, Big Sam is in the house. And he looks like he means business. Wasting not a moment.
Everton make five changes to the starting XI ripped apart at St Mary’s on Sunday afternoon. Leighton Baines, Michael Keane and Phil Jagielka are injured, Morgan Schneiderlin is benched, and Kevin Mirallas fails to make the squad. In come Mason Holgate, Ashley Williams, Cuco Martina, Tom Davies and restored captain Wayne Rooney.
West Ham by contrast are the very picture of consistency. Just the one change to the team sent out for that hard-earned draw with Leicester City at the London Stadium last Friday. Andy Carroll is injured, so his place is taken by Andre Ayew.
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The teams
Everton: Pickford, Kenny, Holgate, Williams, Martina, Davies, Gueye, Lennon, Rooney, Sigurdsson, Calvert-Lewin.
Subs: Schneiderlin, Sandro, Besic, Vlasic, Lookman, Robles, Baningime.
West Ham United: Hart, Zabaleta, Reid, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Kouyate, Obiang, Arnautovic, Lanzini, Masuaku, Ayew.
Subs: Adrian, Sakho, Noble, Martinez, Antonio, Fernandes, Rice.
Referee: Michael Oliver (Northumberland).
Welcome to our coverage of ...
... the biggest game in Everton’s history. Well, that’s what Match of the Day pundit and erstwhile Evertonian Martin Keown was suggesting the other night. Let’s set aside the likes of the 1928 match against Arsenal when Dixie Dean needed a hat-trick to break George Camsell’s league goalscoring record of 59, the 1933 FA Cup final, the 1966 FA Cup final, the 1984 FA Cup final, the 1985 Cup Winners Cup final, and the 1994 status-saving mission against Wimbledon ... let’s not nitpick. Because you get the general drift. This is quite a big one, after all.
It’s 17th versus 18th. A relegation six-pointer? Well, not quite. It’s way too early for that. But it’s a game which could set a tone or sour a season. A win tonight for shambolic Everton, who have lost their last two fixtures 5-1 and 4-1, would catapult them up to 14th spot; they’d be five clear of the dropzone, and with Sam Allardyce coming in, worries of a first relegation since 1951 would suddenly look a bit daft. Defeat, though, would plunge them into the relegation places. Again, it’d be far too early to seriously fret, with two thirds of the season still to play. But fret people will, these days.
The Hammers will harbour hopes of pulling off the victory that would see them leapfrog Everton into 16th. They haven’t won in seven away matches in the league, it’s true, but they did recently register a spectacular win at Spurs in the League Cup, won here at Goodison Park a couple of seasons ago, and put in a confidence-building shift against Leicester last weekend, a promising first match under David Moyes.
Ah, David Moyes. Returning to his alma mater, with something to prove to the entire football world after four forgettable years. Enough to send a superstitious shiver down Evertonian spines? Well, maybe. Then again, Everton are somewhat desperate for a statement victory themselves, one that would hopefully prove a turning point this time (unlike that wild win over Watford). Both teams are looking for the three points that could spur them on to greater things; both teams live in fear of that spirit-sapping defeat. Whose need will prove greater? It could be a blast finding out. It’s on!
Kick off: 8pm GMT.
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