West Ham 4-0 Wolves: Hammers thumping sends Spurs in drop zone | OneFootball

West Ham climbed out of the Premier League relegation zone with a comprehensive 4-0 thumping of Wolves at the London Stadium, plunging rivals Spurs into the bottom three.

Two strikes each from Valentin Castellanos and centre back Konstantinos Mavropanos were enough to all but condemn the Midlands outfit to the drop, while their side rose to 17th with 32 points on the board.

The result sees the Hammers’ local rivals Tottenham, who travel to Sunderland this weekend for Roberto de Zerbi’s first game ahead of needing to engineer a great escape, fall into the bottom three for the first time since 2009.

As it happened

Both teams arrived in Stratford in good form, with the Cockney Boys losing just three of their last 10 league fixtures and Wolves taking eight points from their previous five outings.

And it was the away side who started better, Kyle Walker-Peters being forced to deal with a dangerous Angel Gomes ball before Andre fired over from range.

Yerson Mosquera and Adam Armstrong spurned further good opportunities as the East London side allied a failure to control the midfield with Swiss cheese defending.

But despite the dominance of Rob Edwards’ men West Ham showed encouraging signs as the game wore on, with Jarrod Bowen and Castellanos both missing half chances for the Hammers.

And eventually Nuno’s charges got the goal which looked so unlikely for most of the first 45, ex-Arsenal centre-back Mavropanos heading home from Bowen’s delivery three minutes before the break after Wolves failed to clear a corner.

From there it was all one way traffic, despite Gomes best efforts. Pablo Felipe, Summerville, and Bowen all went close either side of half time as the Irons sensed blood.

It was only a matter of time until the inevitable second arrived and it duly did through Castellanos on 66 minutes, the burly Argentine poking home from close range after substitute Mateus Mane was dispossessed by Summerville.

To add insult to injury for the top flight’s bottom side the 27-year-old netted another two minutes later, with Bowen – who had scored five in his previous five home encounters against The Old Gold – turning provider once again.

Just when the Midlanders felt like matters couldn’t get any worse, Mavropanos thrashed home a sumptuous scissor kick with seven minutes remaining to seal a double of his own.

For West Ham, tonight’s result represents a giant step towards survival after being cut adrift at Christmas. For Wolves, any hopes of pulling off the greatest of all great escapes are surely over.

And for Spurs, the prospect of playing Lincoln away just became a lot, lot more real – much to Jason Cundy’s delight.

After three long weeks away, the Premier League is back with a bang.