West Ham vs Hull City match report: Andy Carroll starts thrashing of Hull before goals by Morgan Amalfitano and Stewart Downing

West Ham 3 Hull City 0

Andy Carroll celebrates opening the scoring (GETTY IMAGES)

If the first half of West Ham United performance felt like a grim regression, the second was a story of the powerful progress of Sam Allardyce’s side.

The Hammers were so bad in the first half, in which they were outplayed by Hull City, that they were booed off. It all felt drearily reminiscent of this fixture last season, when they received that same reception at both half-time and full-time despite winning the game 2-1. That cold evening last March was a nadir in the poverty of West Ham’s play, and the relationship between Allardyce and the home crowd.

This season has been much better but there has still been a lingering fear at the Boleyn Ground that the bad old days were just around the corner, that the new improvements would fade away and last season’s turgid fare would reassert itself. If the first half of this game suggested all of this, the second half – one scrappy goal, two brilliant ones – was a thrilling repudiation of it.

The three points gained pushed West Ham up over Liverpool into seventh place in the Premier League table and Allardyce was delighted afterwards with the improvement and the win.

“I haven’t seen us pass that poorly in the entire season as we did in first half,” the manager admitted. “That can only be a legacy of Tuesday night and the efforts to beat Everton [in the FA Cup].”

But Allardyce changed at half-time from a blunt 4-2-3-1 formation – which left Stewart Downing and Enner Valencia in wide positions – to a sharp diamond in which they were central. “Changing the shape was the big thing, and playing forward quicker,” he explained.

“All this tippy-tappy stuff, everybody going on about the right way to play football, it’s all a load of old bollocks. Getting the ball into the box quickly and with quality is the best way forward. That’s what we did [in the] second half and that’s why we won the game.”

The transformation was almost instant. Kevin Nolan, breaking from deep, volleyed just over the bar with West Ham’s first attack after the re-start. With their next, they took the lead. Downing pulled the ball back to Valencia, whose shot was spilled by Allan McGregor, and there was Carroll to tap in from five yards out.

Morgan Amalfitano makes it 2-0 (GETTY IMAGES)

West Ham were suddenly a different team. They dominated the second half and scored two more goals that would have been simply unimaginable before half-time. Morgan Amalfitano came on as a second-half substitute for Mark Noble and when he broke into the box, Valencia found him with a forward pass. With McGregor advancing, Amalfitano deftly lifted the ball over him with just enough force for it to roll over the line.

The third and final goal was almost as good. Alex Song turned in the centre circle and played a perfectly directed through pass for Downing to run onto. He deceived McGregor with his eyes and put the ball into the near bottom corner.

Hull manager Steve Bruce spoke afterwards of his “bitter disappointment” and understandably so. His side had the chances in the first half but did not take any of them.

Stewart Downing celebrates scoring the Hammers' third (GETTY IMAGES)

Twice in the first two minutes Sone Aluko escaped James Tomkins but could not produce a final ball. Then Aluko escaped Tomkins again and set up Ahmed Elmohamady, who should have been able to hit the target from 10 yards but did not.

West Ham were unable to find any rhythm and Hull, with four Premier League wins all season, were made to look strikingly fluent by comparison.

Twice more Aluko danced away from Tomkins. First, he waited too long to shoot and was tackled by James Collins. Then he tried to exchange passes with Jake Livemore but was let down by the return ball.

“The way we played in the first half absolutely delighted all of us,” said Bruce, whose side are in the relegation zone with 16 games left. “But you have to score and for all of the good work that we’ve done, it unravelled. We cannot let them off the hook like that.”

Each team produced one good half and one poor one, but West Ham were simply more efficient in their good period. “The second half was awful by us,” sighed Bruce. “And the longer the game went on, after we’d done so well, the more frustrating it got.”