With hindsight, Steven Naismith appeared a better option to bring on against a West Ham side willing to allow Everton to have the ball in unsafe areas. “He started training before Watford and he’s been with us for one week now”.
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It did not halt the east Londoners sense of urgency.
The manager was surprised to hear that West Ham had not beaten the Toffees for so long, but it was the run of goals by Lukaku that interested him more.
It was just about the only place he could have put it so it was impossible for Tim Howard to stop.
Everton countered. Adrian was called upon to divert Gerard Deulofeu’s cross-shot with his feet.
West Ham claimed the advantage when Moses took on Galloway again in the 30th minute.
“At the moment I’m concentrating on being fit and scoring goals at West Ham and that’s the only thing that will lead me there”, Carroll, who has scored twice in nine England appearances, told Sky Sports when asked about his chances of an worldwide recall.
An uneasy atmosphere had taken hold of the Upton Park faithful as West Ham struggled to regain any form of momentum.
Valencia, lasted barely 15 minutes before a well-timed tackle from Seamus Coleman forced his retirement.
Their misfortune seemed to galvanise the Hammers who probed with a little more goal.
He was assigned to deal with the aerial threat posed by Andy Carroll, and given Everton’s weakness from crosses into the box recently, the summer signing had an excellent afternoon, keeping the big forward quiet.
Lukaku nearly netted a late victor for the Toffees, but the Belgian sent his attempt wide from Brendan Galloway’s low cross.
Speaking after the game, Hammers boss Slaven Bilic said: “It was a good game”.
“The real problem is when the owner of the club says we need to cash-in on two or three players, but that is not the case at Everton”.
“But the two injuries stopped us a bit. We have a friendly game on Wednesday and he will play in that”.
“They deserved something from the game, definitely”.
“Sakho is out”, said Bilic.
Deulofeu, picking the ball up just inside the West Ham half, created his fifth Premier League goal of an increasingly impressive first season back in English football for the Catalan, by piercing the defence with yet more dead-eye accuracy with a 30 yard pass. “We’re going to make sure that we are ready to face them”.
Although he praised the way the Hammer’s have been playing, he was quick to state, “I think we can go there and get the three points”.
But the games that I’m looking forward to are the two legs between Republic of Ireland and Bosnia in their Euro 2016 play-off.
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“Our performance against Sunderland was exciting to watch and today we had the right mindset to be tested defensively”.
