West Ham finally saw off Shrewsbury in added time of their FA Cup third round replay but it took a thumping volley from a rookie centre-half to do so.
Reece Burke scored his first goal for the club with seven minutes remaining of the added half-hour at a chilly London Stadium. He smashed home Marko Arnautovic’s cutback off the underside of the bar, just when the match looked like heading to penalties without a single goal in either tie.
After nearly three and a half hours of goalless endeavour there was little to tell between the sides from the Premier League and League One and Paul Hurst can take great pride in the performance of his charges. David Moyes, meanwhile, can count on a place in the next round but will reflect on the fact that few of his Hammers irregulars, drafted into the side for these matches, look like forcing their way into his first-team plans.
“We were going to need something like that”, said Moyes of the goal. “We didn’t look strong enough in forward areas to make a difference. Cup ties are difficult in as much as the expectation is on us to make the running and perhaps the expectation was too high. It was always going to be touch and go with the players we had out. It wasn’t that we sat players in the stand tonight because we thought we could do without them.”
It took the second-half introduction of the substitutes Arnautovic and Mark Noble to turn the tide after a first half that passed almost entirely without incident. Both players added a bit more zip to the play alongside willing but less dependable team-mates. One such was the young Spanish forward Toni Martínez, a regular scorer at under-23 level and given his first start for the club. While his running was unflagging, he froze at most of the opportunities presented to him and scuffed West Ham’s best opportunity in regular play wide with eight minutes to go after being teed up by Arnautovic.
Shrewsbury, just as at New Meadow nine days previously, were assiduous in their work and smart about it. West Ham’s play may have been sloppy in the final ball but often it was made to look that way by the anticipation of their opponents. In attack the Shrews gave as good as they got in extra-time and, while more cautious in the initial 90 minutes, had the best opportunity in the game when Stefan Payne went one-on-one with Joe Hart.
After Reece Oxford’s sloppy pass had been turned over by Jon Nolan, the pacy Payne scampered clear into acres of room. He bore down on the England goalkeeper, placed his shot between his legs, only for Hart to get a clip on the ball with his heel and it ran to safety.
“When playing in really big games you’ve got to take the opportunities that come to you,” said Hurst afterwards. “It’s a quiet dressing room in there. I’m disappointed to concede a goal like that, it would have been much easier had Lanzini curled one in from 25 yards. Yes, we can be proud of what we did, but we’re in an industry where you win or you lose and tonight we’ve lost.”
Hurst will now return his attention to a promotion challenge in League One, hopeful of keeping his squad together despite the attention his players’ performances have gained in this competition. “I didn’t think any of our players were that good, and they want to stay at Shrewsbury,” he joked.
As for Moyes, he was forced to fend off questions about Andy Carroll, with the striker reportedly the subject of a £20m bid from Chelsea. “I want to add to the squad, not lose players from it”, the West Ham manager said. “No one’s made contact with me, and if they’ve made contact with someone else they haven’t told me.”
Quick GuideFA Cup fourth round draw
Show
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion
Peterborough United v Leicester City
Huddersfield Town v Birmingham City
Notts County v Swansea City
Yeovil Town v Manchester United
Sheffield Wednesday v Reading
Cardiff City v Manchester City
MK Dons v Coventry City
Millwall v Rochdale
Southampton v Watford
Middlesbrough v Brighton
Wigan v West Ham
Hull City v Nottingham Forest
Newport County v Tottenham Hotspur
Chelsea v Newcastle United
Sheffield United v Preston North End
Ties to be played between 26 and 29 January
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion