West Ham Beat Everton

Supporting West Ham United is always full of surprises and none more so than today. After 4 straight Premier League defeats, West Ham managed to beat bogey team Everton at Goodison Park to record their first league win of the season.

Everton started of very lively in the first 10 minutes and thankfully West Ham weathered the early pressure. Everton are not a side we have a good record against and the early play looked like that trend would continue.

West Ham took the lead on 11 minutes when Arnautovic got on to a lofted through ball and unselfishly passed to an unmarked Yarmolenko on the edge of the six yard box, who had no trouble in hitting the back of the net.

West Ham then made it 2-0 when Yarmolenko showed some nice skill inside the 18 yard box and dummied past two Everton defenders to unleash a curling shot that gave Pickford absolutely no chance to save.

At 2-0 up it all looked very good for West Ham and as the half time whistle approached the objective was to get in at the break with the 2 goal lead intact, unfortunately Everton had other ideas.

With what was literally the last kick of the half, Sigurdsson planted a terrific header into the top corner to make the score 2-1 and completely change the mood of the away fans.

The half time team talks must have changed quite a bit due to that late first half goal, Everton now had some belief they may be able to get something from the game and West Ham were now realising they will have a much more intense second half in store.

West Ham picked up a couple of yellow cards as they tried to frustrate the Everton attack and hold on to their slender advantage, but thankfully they did manage to increase their lead on 61 minutes when enigmatic talisman Arnautovic stabbed home a cross to make the score 3-1.

Everton now faced an uphill struggle and Pellegrini brought on some fresh legs to make that task even harder. Everton striker Oumar Niasse hit the crossbar late on in the game but it was always going to be difficult to come back for a second time in the match and so it proved.

West Ham will now head into the home match against Chelsea with much more confidence after this very good win against Everton. Pellegrini seems to be finally finding his feet and this London derby will be a lot more interesting for Hammers fans than it was looking just a few hours ago.

West Ham Player Rankings

Fabianski 6.7

Zabaleta 6.8

Balbuena 6.5

Diop 7.4

Massuaku 6.6

Rice 7.2

Yarmolenko 7.0

Noble 6.9

Obiang 7.2

Anderson 7.4

Arnautovic 7.9

Subs

Sanchez 6.4

Antonio 6.5

Snodgrass 6.7