Palace hammer West Ham to pile further misery on Moyes
With a stunning victory at Anfield last weekend easing any lingering relegation concerns, Palace began confidently, forcing West Ham into a complete retreat early on. And an inevitable opener duly arrived when Michael Olise nodded in Joachim Andersen’s floated cross with only seven minutes gone, ruining West Ham’s hopes of a first away clean sheet since 28 December.
The Eagles’ claws were truly out, and following a miss from Tyrick Mitchell, Eberechi Eze netted with a thunderous bicycle kick into the roof of Łukasz Fabiański’s net, as his initial save from Jean-Philippe Mateta proved in vain.
That instinctive finish marked the Englishman’s eighth league goal of the season, but Oliver Glasner’s rampant men weren’t done there, and quickly added two more goals with just over half an hour gone.
Palace’s third came when Emerson inadvertently poked Will Hughes’ cross into his own net, before Mateta capped off a brilliant first-half showing by side-footing home Olise’s slide-rule pass from six yards.
On his 693rd Premier League game, this was the earliest a Moyes side had ever found themselves 4-0 down. Although he’d have been happy to see some fighting spirit in his side, as, against the run of play, West Ham found a ray of hope before half-time when Michail Antonio continued his knack of scoring in this fixture by stabbing home from inside the penalty area.
This was a rare positive in an extremely difficult London derby for the visitors, but Palace simply picked up from where they left off after the break, with Eze thwarted only by the brilliance of Fabiański’s low stop to his left.
Not disheartened, Eze remained unplayable beyond the hour mark, and perhaps added a few million to his summer price tag when he produced a sublime nutmeg assist that allowed Mateta to double his tally for the afternoon, shortly before he was substituted to rapturous applause.
The tempo of the game then finally slowed along with the goals, and West Ham managed a late consolation in the most bizarre circumstances late on. Mitchell’s lofted back-pass ought not to have caused Dean Henderson any issues, but an inexplicable miss-kick saw the ball bounce beyond the keeper and trickle over the goal-line.
Moyes’ side were still left humbled regardless, and with a testing run to end the campaign – including games against title-chasing duo Liverpool and Manchester City – the Scotsman will have a job on his hands to stop West Ham’s European dreams from fizzling out.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Eberechi Eze (Crystal Palace)
