Haller Double Secures Progression for Hammers
West Ham United booked their place in the third round of the Carabao Cup and will face a home encounter with either Leeds United or Hull City after a comprehensive 3-0 win over Sky Bet League One outfit Charlton Athletic in their second round Southern Section tie in Stratford on Tuesday night.
Issa Diop was the only player to keep his place from Saturday’s 2-0 defeat by Newcastle United, as David Moyes named a strong side with Sébastien Haller and Andriy Yarmolenko both included.
Youngsters Aji Alese, Xande Silva, Harrison Ashby and Connor Coventry were amongst the substitutes on a fairly inexperienced bench.
The action got underway and after eleven minutes, the Hammers thought they had gone in front when Yarmolenko beat visiting goalkeeper Ben Amos but unfortunately for both the team and their supporters watching from home, referee Andre Marriner disallowed the Ukrainian’s effort.
Lee Bowyer’s side were struggling to really get any rhythm going, allowing the hosts to show their superiority. This was in evidence when Haller was through on goal but unfortunately he didn’t hit the target.
The Frenchman did however have some joy with his next attempt on twenty two minutes as he tapped the ball past Amos, following great play from Yarmolenko, who sprung the offside trap to run onto Josh Cullen’s pass before setting up the striker.
The Irons were truly up and running when they extended their advantage just four minutes later. Haller netted for a second time after he got his head to a cross from Robert Snodgrass and gave Amos no chance.
The Addicks went close just after the half-hour mark when Johnny Williams tested West Ham stopper Darren Randolph with a powerful shot but thankfully, the Irishman was able to save.
West Ham have had a pretty decent record of getting past this round in recent years and when the whistle blew for the break, they looked on course to make it to the next stage once again.
Randolph had been selected ahead of Łukasz Fabiański in goal and the one-time Addicks man was keeping his old club at bay, as he again prevented Williams, as well as denying Chuks Aneke.
Once that spell of pressure from the visitors had slowed down, the Irons again began to dominate in the hope of scoring a third to complete a successful night’s work.
They went close on a number of occasions but try as they might, they just couldn’t apply the telling touch. That was until the eightyth minute when Manuel Lanzini cleverly set up Felipe Anderson to add his name to the scoresheet.
Moyes made a double change four minutes later as he replaced Academy graduate Ben Johnson with fellow youngster Ashby, while at the same time, Snodgrass made way for Coventry.
After two minutes of stoppage time were added at the end of the game, the home side were able to celebrate their first win of the season and look forward to another big week starting with the visit to The Emirates Stadium to take on Arsenal for another evening kick-off on Saturday.