West Ham 2 Newcastle United 3: Magpies' slide ends in festive thriller
Andre Ayew's penalty miss ultimately proved crucial as Newcastle United beats West Ham in a five-goal thriller at London Stadium.
Published : Dec 24, 2017 00:15 IST
Newcastle United moved out of the Premier League relegation zone as it claimed a first win in 10 games with a pulsating 3-2 victory over West Ham on Saturday.
The Magpies went into the contest at London Stadium having taken just one point from the last 27 available, and looked set for another long afternoon when Marko Arnautovic pounced on an early Christmas gift from Henri Saivet to open the scoring.
But Saivet, making his first start in central midfield under Rafael Benitez with Mikel Merino and Isaac Hayden both injured, quickly equalised with a long-range free-kick.
Newcastle twice struck the woodwork as they enjoyed the better of the first half, and eventually completed the turnaround in the second as Mohamed Diame scored against his former club.
An immediate chance for West Ham to level was not taken when Andre Ayew saw a contentious penalty kept out by Rob Elliot and Christian Atsu soon punished him at the other end by capping off a lightning break from the host's corner to put Newcastle two clear.
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Ayew provided hope for West Ham in the 69th minute but his spot-kick failure ultimately proved decisive as it could not find a late leveller, meaning it is now back-to-back defeats for David Moyes as its recent upturn in form is halted, while Benitez can finally be allowed to feel somewhat more festive.
Key Opta Stats: - West Ham has lost two successive home Premier League matches against promoted sides for the first time since 2006-07. - This is the fourth time that Newcastle has won both Premier League games against West Ham in a season – on three of those occasions it has been a promoted side. - Henri Saivet became the 16th player to score a direct free-kick goal in the Premier League for Newcastle – only Everton and West Ham (17 each) have had more. - West Ham has failed to score three of its last five Premier League penalties, with each being missed by a different player (previously Mark Noble vs Burnley, Manuel Lanzini vs Everton). - Ayew scored his 12th goal for West Ham in all competitions since he signed, but this was only his third at the London Stadium. - Christian Atsu both scored and assisted a goal in the same match for the first time in his English league career. |