FA Cup : West Brom 4 - 0 West Ham

Brown Ideye continues scoring streak to fire West Brom past West Ham

West Brom 4 - 0 West Ham

Brown Ideye 20
James Morrison 42
Brown Ideye 57
Saido Berahino 72


Brown Ideye celebrates his second goal for West Brom against West Ham.

Brown Ideye struck twice to take his tally to four in his last three games as West Bromwich Albion knocked West Ham out of the FA Cup with surprising ease.

The £10m Nigerian striker was on his way out of The Hawthorns and bound for Qatar until West Brom’s attempt to sign Carlton Cole fell through on deadline day, and credits Tony Pulis for re-invigorating his career.

West Brom are already unrecognisable as the lifeless, directionless basket case they appeared before Pulis arrived. They pulverised West Ham here, playing quick, forceful football that the visitors simply could not match.

The Pulis plan is familiar enough by now. First he tightens the defence, keeping a solid rearguard back to deny opponents space, then he employs players who can break out quickly and hurt teams on the counter.

In midfielders such as Craig Gardner and James Morrison he has the ideal means of turning defence into attack because both have an excellent passing range and an eye for goal.

It was a long, accurate diagonal ball from Gardner that set up the first goal. Aaron Cresswell’s half-hearted challenge was never going to prevent Craig Dawson bearing down on goal, and after brushing the West Ham defender aside the full-back looked up to find Ideye waiting on the six-yard line for a first-time finish. Morrison then had a shot saved by Adrián before Gardner rattled the West Ham crossbar with a terrific effort from 25 yards out. That should have been a warning to the visitors, for when Morrison rode a midfield challenge from Mark Noble just before the interval, he immediately looked up and did the same, and this time Adrián had no chance with a sweetly struck drive that found the inside of his left upright.

Any West Ham hopes of a second-half recovery were snuffed out by Ideye’s second of the afternoon after an hour, initially missing a Chris Brunt cross from the left but hanging around in front of goal to beat Adrián with a header when Stéphane Sessègnon chased down the loose ball and sent over a cross from the right.

If that was the sort of defending that sends Sam Allardyce into apoplexy his afternoon was about to get even worse. First Diafra Sakho saw a header cleared off the line in a rare West Ham attack, then when the striker was substituted for Cole the visiting fans made their dissatisfaction heard.

Another substitute, Morgan Amalfitano, marked his return to The Hawthorns by getting sent off after a mere 10 minutes on the field, first taking Brunt’s legs from behind then compounding his misdemeanour by pushing the player in the face in front of the referee when his opponent had the temerity to object. When Saido Berahino slipped in a fourth goal from a narrow angle a minute later it was almost an afterthought to a contest already won. The noise from the West Ham end suddenly began to decrease at that point, because with 20 minutes remaining, around half of the travelling supporters had left the stadium.

Many thought this Cup tie might have been close. In fact it was almost a walkover.

Guardian