EPL: Swansea Out Of Relegation Zone
Swansea moved out of the relegation zone as they comfortably dispatched a dismal West Ham side whose “embarrassing” performance was “impossible to assess”, Hammers boss David Moyes said.
Ki Sung-yueng shot low into the corner from Andre Ayew’s pass to open the scoring inside 10 minutes, before Mike van der Hoorn nodded in the South Korean’s corner amid slack marking.
Between those two first-half goals, Winston Reid was put in a neck brace and taken off on a stretcher after suffering a bad injury in a goalmouth scramble.
He received treatment for 10 minutes after appearing to be knocked unconscious, and was taken to hospital for a scan.
After the break, West Ham crumbled further. Andy King tapped in the rebound from an Adrian save that denied Andre Ayew’s header from another corner, before Cheikhou Kouyate tripped Ayew in the box.
Andre’s brother Jordan Ayew coolly slotted the spot-kick into the corner to round off a vital win that was only slightly dampened by Michail Antonio’s late consolation, the substitute winger finishing from Aaron Cresswell’s delivery.
“The fans travelled through the snow to get here and we let them down badly,” Moyes added.
“We had no intensity in our play, we thought we could just stroll about.”
Meanwhile, Carlos Carvalhal’s impressive work continues. His team are now up to 13th in the table – climbing above the Hammers on goal difference – having been bottom when he took over in late December. This was a seventh consecutive home win in all competitions.
West Ham drop to 14th, with both sides still only three points clear of the bottom three.
Just after the break, with David Moyes’ thoughts on being two goals down at half-time presumably still fresh in their minds, West Ham shipped a third.
David Moyes post Swansea defeat
Andre Ayew rose to head from another Ki corner, and Adrian reacted well to keep it out but palmed his stop straight into Javier Hernandez’s face. Out the ball came – dropping to the one white shirt in a position to tap home, as the markers around him slumped.
King’s goal was his first since joining on loan from Leicester, and it summed up West Ham’s performance in one action. They were sluggish, unfortunate, beaten.
In the first half, Adrian had been slow to get down and reach the Ki shot from range that crept steadily into the corner after nobody closed him. Then came the injury to Reid that left the Hammers with a makeshift defence, four regular full-backs across the line.
That might explain something of the poor marking from which Van der Hoorn profited for the second goal that sent Swansea clear and never looking back, but not once did it feel like West Ham were capable of finding a response to adversity.
With just nine games remaining before the end of the season – and just two of those coming against teams also in danger of relegation (Stoke and Southampton), this is what will concern Moyes most of all.
