West Ham 2-1 Aston Villa

By: Martin | November 5th, 2009

A new hero was anointed on Wednesday when Zavon Hines scored the winner against Aston Villa deep into stoppage time. It looked like another winless night as the game petered out to a one all draws until “Hero Hines” latched on to a pass from Scott Parker.

The first half started badly for the Hammers with Herita Ilunga only lasting seven minutes before he came off injured with a hamstring problem. After some early pressure from Villa, Carlton Cole became the second hamstring victim when he limped off after a half hour, replaced by Zavon Hines.

Almost immediately Hines became an irritation for Villa. Just before half time Scott Parker made a great run from midfield and laid off to Guillermo Franco who quickly found Hines. The youngster was goal-bound but was pushed in the back by Villa’s Beye. The ref pointed straight to the stop and Mark Noble smashed the penalty past Brad Friedel. Soon after the half-time whistle was blown and two Villa players were booked for arguing about the penalty in the tunnel.

whu_villa When the second half started it only took Villa three minutes for Villa to almost get level. James Collins was fouled in the area by his Hammer’s replacement Manuel Da Costa. The ref gave Villa a penalty, but it seemed very harsh for the level of contact. Ashley Young struck the penalty well, but Rob Green made a great save in front of the watching England manager.

Unfortunately for the Hammers, Ashley Young made up for his blunder after fifty minutes when he swept over a cross towards the goal that just dipped under the bar. After the goal, the match was back and forth until five minutes before the end when Beye cut down Jonathan Spector and was promptly sent off.

Deep into stoppage time “Hero Hines” made a great run inside the Villa area and shot passed Friedel to excite the 30,000 Hammers fans.