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Wayne Rooney completed his first-ever hat-trick for Everton in spectacular style, with a whip-smart first-time drive from inside his own half.

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Wed 29 Nov 2017 16.55 ESTFirst published on Wed 29 Nov 2017 14.00 EST
Wayne Rooney
Everton’s Wayne Rooney celebrates scoring after his penalty is saved. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Action Images via Reuters
Everton’s Wayne Rooney celebrates scoring after his penalty is saved. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Action Images via Reuters

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FULL TIME: Everton 4-0 West Ham United

And so Everton caretaker boss David Unsworth does indeed go out on a high. He leaves the team in 13th spot, looking so much more comfortable than they did a couple of hours ago. And it’s all thanks to hat-trick hero Wayne Rooney, who scored a goal-of-the-season contender from inside his own half, a first-time drive of poise, cheek and technique that’ll be replayed over and over again. Sam Allardyce smiles broadly in the stand: he’s picked a good time to take over. By contrast, poor David Moyes doesn’t look quite so chuffed: his out-of-sorts West Ham side have just been thrashed by a team who had themselves been low on confidence, and remain floundering in 18th. A relegation struggle stretches out ahead of them.

Joe Hart of West Ham United reacts to the defeat. Photograph: Alex Livesey/Getty Images
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90 min: There will be three added minutes. It’s 180 seconds which can’t tick round quickly enough for David Moyes.

89 min: A corner for West Ham out on the right. Rice sends a header sailing miles over the bar. Then Lennon is replaced, to appreciative applause, by Ademola Lookman.

85 min: Rooney is given a standing ovation as he leaves the pitch. He’s earned it all right. Beni Baningime takes his place.

84 min: Everton play a little keep-ball in the midfield. Sigurdsson and Calvert-Lewin suddenly pick up the pace, trying to open West Ham up down the inside left. Not quite.

82 min: Goodison is quiet again. But it’s a satisfied purr around this grand old stadium. How quickly the mood changes. What a goal Wayne Rooney scored to effect that change!

80 min: What price Pickford’s penalty save now? West Ham came out for the second half with the jets at full blast, and were excellent for a while, but they look a relegation rabble right now. It’s a thin line.

GOAL! Everton 4-0 West Ham United (Williams 78)

And suddenly this is a rout. The corner’s swung in from the right. Williams gets in front of Rice, eight yards out, in line with the near post. He flicks towards the top left. Hart’s picking the ball out of his net again.

Ashley Williams heads to score. Photograph: Tony McArdle - Everton FC/Everton FC via Getty Images
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77 min: Everton come at West Ham en masse. Davies powers towards the area. He slides the ball right for Kenny, who drills low into the box. Calvert-Lewin meets it on the penalty spot, first time, but his blast towards the bottom right is deflected out by Reid, another heroic slide. But Reid really has done himself, and is forced to go off. Declan Rice comes on in his stead.

75 min: Calvert-Lewin very nearly strips Reid for pace down the left. Reid stops him with a last-ditch slide tackle; the Everton man would have been clear down the wing otherwise. But saving a free run on goal has come at a cost, as Reid springs up and feels his hamstring. He’ll keep going for now.

73 min: Everton are cruising now. Lennon dribbles down the left and nearly breaks through, but the move peters out. “Who’d have thought that, with all that transfer activity, the most important signing of Everton’s summer was Joe Hart for West Ham?” quips Gary Naylor.

70 min: And here’s the other side of Rooney, deliberately raking his studs down the back of Lanzini’s leg. It’s a yellow for sure. A red wouldn’t be completely outrageous. But the referee doesn’t do anything.

ROONEY FROM THE HALFWAY LINE! Everton 3-0 West Ham United (Rooney 66)

Calvert_Lewin chases a lost cause down the inside-left channel. Hart races from his area, sliding in to hook the ball back upfield. Rooney, just inside the centre circle on the left, meets the clearance first time, driving it over the stranded Hart and into the empty net from his own half! What technique! What vision! What a way to complete his first-ever Everton hat-trick!

Everton’s Wayne Rooney celebrates scoring their third goal. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters
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66 min: West Ham continue to ping it around. Antonio suddenly bursts down the inside-right channel. He’s got men in the middle, but drags the ball behind them all. Bad mistake, because ...

63 min: Everton have hardly touched the ball since the restart. West Ham are dominating the middle of the park. The home fans aren’t particularly happy with things right now.

61 min: David Moyes, perhaps mindful of keeping his team’s collective chin up after the penalty miss, makes another change, swapping Arnautovic for Antonio.

59 min: Lanzini takes, smacking it towards the bottom left. It’s not a brilliant spot kick, well inside the post, but not terrible either. However Pickford gets down and with a strong hand pushes the ball away from danger! West Ham’s chance to get back into this game is spurned! Pickford has done his mate Williams a big favour there, because the challenge to concede the spot kick was a nonsense.

West Ham United’s Manuel Lanzini has a penalty saved by Everton’s Jordan Pickford. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Action Images via Reuters
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Penalty for West Ham!

58 min: Sakho and Arnautovic take turns to hold the ball up purposefully on the right-hand edge of the Everton box. They can’t quite open the hosts up. But no matter! They come straight back at them. Sakho holds the ball up again, with his back to goal. Williams clumsily scythes him down from behind. A no-brainer for the ref. Penalty!

Manuel Lanzini of West Ham United takes a penalty that is saved by Jordan Pickford. Photograph: Alex Livesey/Getty Images
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56 min: Lennon and Kenny combine down the right. But the street of Kenny is a dead end, and he runs the ball out of play. Still, that’s a little period of play in West Ham territory; Everton need the breather.

54 min: Davies is retrospectively booked for a late tackle on Kouyate, the infringement coming in the middle of that West Ham flurry.

52 min: Lanzini cuts in from the left and sends a swerving riser goalwards from 25 yards. Pickford parries well. Then another phase of attack, as Lanzini rolls a pass towards Cresswell down the inside-left channel. Cresswell sends a screamer towards the top right. Pickford is beaten, but the ball clips the crossbar instead of nestling into the corner. West Ham are so unlucky not to be right back in this match. They’ve been a different team since the restart.

50 min: Zabaleta and Cresswell take turns to wheech the ball into the Everton mixer from either flank. Everton manage to clear the balls easily enough, but they’re soon forced to defend again as West Ham come straight back at them. The Goodison crowd are a bit agitated at this state of affairs.

49 min: Everton are being pinned back in their own box right now. West Ham are in the zone for the first time this evening. Pickford still hasn’t had his hands seriously warmed, but small acorns and all that.

48 min: Everton fail to deal with a long hoof into their box. Martina and Sakho both miss their headers on the edge of the area. Arnautovic is therefore afforded a little space in the right of the box. He looks to curl one onto Sakho’s head, six yards out, but the ball’s too close to Pickford, who picks it off.

46 min: The early signs are good for West Ham. A one-two between Ayew and Sakho earns a corner down the right within 20 seconds of the restart. The set piece leads to nothing, but West Ham already look a bit more lively. Moyes with a few paint-stripping words at half-time, one would imagine.

And we’re off again! West Ham get the ball rolling, having made one change: Sakho comes on for Obiang. It’s a positive move. It needed to be. But will it make any difference? West Ham were toothless in the first half.

The mood from both camps at half time? Contrasting, to say the least. First up, here’s Ian the Esherhammer: “We have a keeper weak on one side and can’t kick. A back four containing probably the worst Italian international in history. A midfield that seems to have forgotten how to run and pass. Centre forwards that are either mad (Sakho) or knackered (Carroll). And the two most expensive players in the club’s history? Arnie and Ayew? £44m on decorations when we’ve spent bugger all on foundations. I’ve not seen worse in 40 years.”

Meanwhile here’s Barry McAuley’s verdict on all-new mid-table Everton: “Just another seven goals and Everton could be up to 12th for the start of the new regime. And lest we forget, an international manager with a 100% record at that level! A real signal of intent by the Everton board.”

Everton don’t really do relegation, anyway, as a rule. The last time they fell out of the top division was in 1951, when they did so in some style, thrashed 6-0 by Sheffield Wednesday when a point would have saved their skin. “To abuse Everton at this stage would be like picking up a person badly mauled from a street accident and reading him a lecture on the folly of jaywalking.” A contemporary take by your super soaraway Manchester Guardian, as referenced in The Title: The Story of the First Division. Happier times also feature: Dixie Dean, the Golden Vision, Howard Kendall, all that. But still, 6-0.

HALF TIME: Everton 2-0 West Ham United

West Ham won here from two goals down in March 2016. But Dimitri Payet isn’t around these days. It’s difficult to see where any comeback would come from tonight. Everton, after a slightly nervous start, have wrested total control of this game. The way things are going, they’ll be in mid-table in an hour’s time, and West Ham will remain in the dropzone.

45 min +1: The corner leads to a messy melee in the Everton six-yard box. Zabaleta tries to latch onto the ball as it bounces around freely, but he can’t get near enough to give it a whack, and Everton clear their lines.

45 min: Lanzini dribbles down the right and is brought down by Sigurdsson a few yards from the corner flag. Cresswell loops it deep; Kenny heads out for a corner. West Ham really need something before the break to raise their spirits.

44 min: Davies embarks on another wander towards the West Ham area. No pressure on him whatsoever. He tries to thread a pass down the inside-right channel to release Lennon into the area. It’s not quite right, but not far away either.

43 min: West Ham knock it around the middle of the park awhile, but go absolutely nowhere. The stuffing really has been knocked out of them.

41 min: Holgate very nearly tees up Ayew on the edge of the Everton box, fluffing a simple header back to his keeper by knocking the ball straight up in the air. But Pickford is wise to what’s unfolding, and is quickly out to gather the ball before the striker can get anywhere near it. Pickford is the real deal.

39 min: Now it’s the turn of Davies to go down in the West Ham area, under a shoulder charge from Ogbonna. Nothing wrong with that. But Everton have a spring in their step. They’re putting West Ham under all sorts of pressure. The visitors have no answer.

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