West Ham vs QPR match report: Nedum Onuoha own goal sets Hammers on their way

West Ham 2 QPR 0

Nedum Onuoha puts the ball in his own net (GETTY IMAGES)

It was on West Ham’s academy pitches just down the road at Chadwell Heath twenty years or so ago that a more youthful Harry Redknapp would continually tell a very young Rio Ferdinand that, "God wouldn’t have done it like that. God would have done it like this."

The footballing deity in question, of course, was Bobby Moore, and if the great man’s ghost ever haunts the Upton Park stand that now bears his name, he’d have born witness on Sunday afternoon to something quite unholy unfolding in the penalty box in front of him.

Harry Redknapp has only lost once at Upton Park since he left the club in 2001, but never had he dared to turn up with a defence as questionable as this.

It was only a matter of minutes before Stewart Downing curled a corner into the centre of the six yard box where, while the QPR defence wondered who might take responsibility for it, it hit the shin of Nedum Onuoha and went past Robert Green and into the net.

The match scarcely came to light in the first half, but it almost didn’t need to. West Ham’s bright new attack scarcely had to labour to created chances against a QPR defence that fluctuated between slow and invisible.

QPR’s entirely brand new central pairing, Steven Caulker and Rio Ferdinand were again so underwhelming on the pitch they no longer impress even on paper.

Where any defending was done, it was desperate stuff, Sandro and Henry flying in with last ditch tackles made necessary by the chaos all around them.

West Ham doubled their lead on 58 minutes when James Tomkins skilfully hooked a pass over his head from the corner of the six yard box, and over the entire QPR defence, where Diafra Sakho headed in to an empty net from all of two yards out for his fifth goal in as many games.

Diafra Sakho heads in West Ham's second (GETTY IMAGES)

QPR did create one decent chance in the first half, when Charlie Austin got ahead of the West Ham defence on twenty minutes, but chose to bend a tame shot into the arms of the waiting Adrian from the corner of the six yard box, rather than cut the ball back to the far better placed Nico Kranjcar.

The West Ham crowd will have known what to expect from Bobby Zamora when he came on at half time, but the players certainly didn’t, as within 90 seconds he set up Austin for a chance he should have scored, and scarcely a minute later broke free of James Tomkins who had no choice but to haul him to the ground for a yellow card.

If there had been any method, it descended briefly into madness on the hour mark, when Rob Green took a free kick from within his own six yard box and rolled it directly to West Ham’s Enner Valencia, who smashed it in to the net, only for the goal to be disallowed for Valencia not being ten yards away. It was comical stuff, but Queen’s Park Rangers had nothing to laugh about. Had West Ham not already been two goals ahead they might have felt hard done by.

The visitors had a brighter spell in the middle of the second half, with Zamora, Austin and Krancjar causing difficulties for West Ham’s uncertain but largely untested defence. Nico Krancjar’s free kick on seventy minutes had Adrian stretching to his left to tip an awkwardly bouncing shot around the post.

In his program notes West Ham manager Sam Allardyce praised his side’s attacking intent, but expressed dismay it had not brought them more points, not least because seven games in to the season they were yet to keep a clean sheet.

With seven games gone, this match felt like it came at a crossroads for both clubs. One playing dismally, bottom of the league, and probably destined for a battle to stay alive. The other finally playing the sort of football their fans demand, but without the points to show for it, and still without a single clean sheet. West Ham will hope this result, that takes them in to the top half of the table, will be the start of a challenge that could end with more than a comfortable mid table finish.