Everton 2-1 West Ham: Osman strike denies West Ham

Leon Osman's second goal of the season on his 400th Everton appearance gave Everton a slender win over high flying West Ham. Romelu Lukaku got the first goal which was supposedly offside. It wasn't until the second half that the visitors got a goal back. Mauro Zarate's shot deflected magnificently off Phil Jagielka and went in. Osman scored the winner and sends Everton up to eighth.

West Ham were missing strikers Diafra Sakho and Enner Valencia and so this meant a welcome return to action for Andy Carroll, who made his first start since having ankle surgery. James McCarthy also started for Everton despite withdrawing from the Ireland squad last week in controversial circumstances.

Ross Barkley had one of the best early chances but couldn't put the ball past Adrian in the West Ham goal. It wasn't until the 26th minute that the deadlock was broken. Ross Barkley's shot was blocked and rebounded to Lukaku, who put it away to score his fifth goal of the season. It as given despite Lukaku supposedly being in an offside position when he scored, despite the protests of the West Ham fans, Mark Clattenburg let the goal stand.

Eleven minutes later Everton had another ball in the net, but this one was actually ruled out for offside, and the two teams went in at the break with Evrton leading.

It only took ten minutes for West Ham to get back into the game, Sam Allardyce brought on Zarate and Matt Jarvis for Carlton Cole and Mark Noble and these appeared to be masterful changes by the boss as Zarate ran across the Everton box, and his shot hit Jagielka's leg and looped high above Tim Howard, who could do nothing about the shot.

McCarthy was the next one to challenge the West Ham goalas the Toffees went in search of a winner. But it was Everton stalwart Leon Osman who scored he winner. On his 400th appearance for the Merseyside club. West Ham drop out of the top four as a result of this defeat, and Everton move up to eighth, a point behind their vistiors.

The game was evenly balanced, with both sides having many chances, it just turned out that Everton made the most of theirs and get anoter win at Goodison Park.