Leon Osmans second goal of the season sealed a 2-1 victory for Everton over high-flying West Ham at Goodison Park. Romelu Lukaku opened the scoring for Everton in the first half with Osmans 73rd-minute strike sandwiching a West Ham reply by Mauro Zarate. The win takes Everton up to 17 points in the Premier League, one behind West Ham, who started the day in fourth place. In the 26th minute, Ross Barkley cleverly controlled a headed pass from Naismith to wrongfoot a defender but, as he shaped to strike the ball, it was blocked. The wild deflection fell kindly to Lukaku, in space on the left of the six-yard box, and the Belgium international calmly gave West Ham’s Spanish keeper Adrian little chance as he swept it in for the opening goal. Eleven minutes later Lukaku put the ball in the back of the net for a second time but was ruled off- side. In the second half, Argentine striker Zarate, who had only just come on for West Ham as a substitute, picked the ball up on the right in the 56th minute, ran across the top of the Everton box and fired through several defenders. The ball hit Jagielka’s out- stretched leg and took a big deflection over the advancing Tim Howard, who could do nothing to prevent the ball looping high over his head and into the net for the equaliser. James McCarthy went close for Everton three minutes later after running at James Tomkins, cutting inside and curling a beautiful shot just past the far corner of the goal. Close The decisive goal came in the 73rd minute after Lukaku broke quickly over the half-way line and James Collins took him out. Ref Mark Clattenburg played an excellent advantage and Samuel Eto’o, on as a substitute for Kevin Mirallas, collected the ball to thread a perfect ball across the box to Osman racing in on the far side. And midfielder Osman made no mistake to put Everton back in front with his second goal of the season. Moments later Howard kept Everton in front with a point- blank save with his legs from Collins. In the dying minutes Osman and Etoo again combined with a wonderful one-two on the edge of the West Ham box, Osman pulling it back in front of the goal only for the Cameroon international to hit it hard - but wide. Paul Merson I was quite impressed with West Ham. With the amount of injuries they had, they did alright. You take five players out for a team like West Ham and send them to Everton and you think they’d get done, but they were really good. Lukaku might have been offside for Evertons first goal, the equaliser. I think he got lucky. But then West Ham were very good, moved the ball quickly and put crosses in and put Everton under pressure. Then, against the run of play, Everton went down the other end of the park and Osman scored.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 14:49:26 +0000
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