West Ham United dished out six of the best as they thrashed nine-man Lincoln City at the ProAmpac Stadium on Wednesday night.
The Red Imps were well and truly punished for receiving two red cards inside the opening 23 minutes as the Hammers romped to their biggest away win in 103 years.
“It was important to try and keep building our momentum moving forward,” smiled Nuno Espírito Santo after Konstantinos Mavropanos finally broke the deadlock on the stroke of the interval before Tomáš Souček’s second-half double plus goals from Edvin Austbø, Jarrod Bowen and Pablo gave his side a scintillating 6-0 victory. “We came into this game after a disappointing evening against Queens Park Rangers but now we’ve had a good night.”
The Hammers head coach made four changes from the dismal derby draw (1-1) against the R’s on Friday evening, recalling Pablo, Mohamadou Kanté, Joël Piroe and Joël Veltman, who soon felt the full force of Tom Hamer’s reckless, bone-crunching, third-minute tackle.
Referee Andrew Kitchen immediately dismissed the Lincoln defender, while the Dutchman was, thankfully, able to continue following treatment.
“The first tackle was really close to me,” winced Nuno. “I haven’t seen the images yet but it was an obvious red card in my opinion.”
Midway through the opening period, last-man Conor McGrandles followed Hamer down the tunnel of shame when he mis-controlled and had no option but to haul down the escaping Bowen as the West Ham skipper headed for goal.
Despite having that two-man numerical advantage and 80 per cent possession, the Hammers were still huffing and puffing in their quest to break the deadlock.
But seconds before the interval, Mavropanos arrived at the far post to head home Bowen’s deep corner and claim his fifth-goal of the season and, as the half-time whistle blew, the frustrated Nuno kept his players on the pitch for a brief team-huddle.
“We’d wanted to get a goal so desperately but were making mistakes by trying to rush things and score with shots from long-range,” he explained. “I was crediting Lincoln because they were still in the game and creating a lot of problems for us and it had been difficult to find the gaps.”
The second-half was a different story, though, as interval substitute Austbø bent a delightful 18-yarder under the right-hand angle just three minutes after his arrival and, seconds later, Bowen took his tally for the season to eight, when he cut in from the right and squeezed a low shot in-off the base of George Wickens’ left-hand post.
With a quarter-hour remaining, Pablo met Austbø’s near-post corner to finally claim his first league goal since his £20million signing from Gil Vicente in January, before substitute Souček curled in a crisp 15-yarder ahead of then bundling home after Wickens spilled Maximilian Kilman’s low cross under pressure from Taty Castellanos.
“Once we got that second goal we did much better in terms of being patient with the ball and finding the right moment to be clinical,” concluded Nuno, who takes his third-placed side to table-topping Swansea City on Saturday (kick off 3pm). “Our recovery will now be much better and, hopefully, we can repeat this performance but all the teams in this league are difficult opponents so we will need to prepare well for it. Swansea are a good side so it will be a tough one.”
Share