Lukaku leaves it late

Everton 1 West Ham 0

We never get much from Merseyside and it's proved to be the case again at Everton, with West Ham's five-match unbeaten run ending. Looking at the Match of the Day  highlights Barry should have been sent off early on for pulling down Nolan as he ran on to Carlton Cole's flick. The Blues only have two real chances in the first half, Adrian parrying Naismith's effort and Deulofeu jinxing through to shoot wide. Not sure why Allardyce replaces Cole with Carroll after 30 minutes, surely not a great boost for Carlton's confidence. It looks as if Carroll's injury curse has struck again when he dislocates a finger (he's since published a picture of the dodgy digit on twitter) but it's merely a scratch to our version of Monty Python's Black Knight and once it's popped back in AC plays on.

Pienaar hits the post early in the second half and scoops another chance over the bar. West Ham have a couple of moments when Carroll fires in a great left foot volley that Howard tips over and Nolan cuts inside on the left to shoot just past the post. The breakthrough comes nine minutes from the end when Baines crosses to find sub Lukaku who shoots home through a crowd of defenders. Everton had 70 per cent of the possession, which isn't good enough, but we came close to getting a point with another disciplined defensive performance without showing enough going forward. Difficult month coming up now the Hull game has been postponed, with Stoke away presenting another tricky match in a fortnight.