West Brom’s Gareth McAuley denies West Ham a comeback win at the last
Press Association>br Date Published Saturday 11 February 2017 17.22 GMT

West Bromwich Albion secured a stoppage-time goal to rescue a 2-2 draw in Stratford. West Ham United felt Nacer Chadli’s early goal should not have stood and were unhappy one of their own efforts was disallowed – but they appeared to have secured a fourth win in five games with goals from Sofiane Feghouli and Manuel Lanzini. However, Gareth McAuley forced a late equaliser to earn the visitors a point.

“There were four or five decisions and all of them went totally against us,” said the West Ham manager, Slaven Bilic, who was sent off after he threw a television microphone in response to McAuley’s leveller. “It’s building up your frustration. Then at the end you don’t understand it. It’s hard to get over that.”

For the third game in succession, West Brom took a sixth-minute lead. Amid the hosts’ appeals for a foul by Chris Brunt on Feghouli, Chadli took advantage of their lack of focus and static defending to beat Cheikhou Kouyaté before calmly finishing between Darren Randolph’s legs from close range.

Robert Snodgrass threatened when he forced the diving Ben Foster to tip the ball around the far left post – but thereafter their inability to replace the focal point of Carroll was clear.

The influence of the imposing Salomón Rondón grew during the first half. Teeing up Matt Phillips’s header with few options in the 15th minute, the striker was unfortunate not to double their lead when he powerfully struck the crossbar from the edge of the area.

Two minutes later, Feghouli felt he had equalised – but his effort was instead rightly ruled offside by the referee, Michael Oliver. Foster had unconvincingly punched another delivery from Snodgrass no further than Lanzini when the midfielder’s pass found the Algeria international, whose close-range finish was disallowed because Michail Antonio was in an offside position.

Feghouli’s perseverance was rewarded in the 63rd minute when The influential Feghouli also dragged a shot wide of the far post from the right edge of the area, and ended a counterattack led by Antonio because of a heavy touch, before being rewarded for his perseverance in the 63rd minute.

Lanzini’s curling shot was tipped on to the bar by Ben Foster, and he raced on to the rebound to level the scores.

Lanzini appeared to have secured all three points for the hosts in the 86th minute when the Argentinian again created space on the edge of the area and he curled a shot into the bottom-left corner beyond Foster.

However, the visitors earned a final set piece in the fourth minute of added time. Brunt crossed brilliantly and McAuley got the final touch on Jonny Evans’ header.

“This was, including last season, one of our best games,” said Bilic. “To end like this, conceding a late goal after everything that happened regarding the decisions, it’s very frustrating and hard to accept. That’s why I’m proud of my team but also very, very angry at the decisions. “Our disallowed goal, they ruled it out because of offside. It wasn’t offside.”