{"id":2311,"date":"2014-03-01T17:15:45","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T17:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=2311"},"modified":"2014-03-01T17:15:45","modified_gmt":"2014-03-01T17:15:45","slug":"lukaku-returns-with-a-bang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/lukaku-returns-with-a-bang\/","title":{"rendered":"Lukaku Returns With A Bang"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A late strike from second-half substitute Romelu Lukaku earned Everton a 1-0 win over West Ham in a closely-fought encounter at Goodison Park.<\/p>\n<p>The hosts enjoyed the better of play in opening stages but first-half chances were few-and-far between for both sides with West Ham happy to sit deep and look to counter.<\/p>\n<p>Steven Naismith twice headed wide early on before forcing Adrian into action for the first time of the afternoon as the West Ham goalkeeper parried his effort behind from a tight angle.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being dominated in possession, the Hammers gradually came into the game and Tim Howard bravely smothered Kevin Nolan at the near post following Matty Taylor&#8217;s cross.<\/p>\n<p>Sam Allardyce sent on Andy Carroll to boost his side&#8217;s attacking threat, while at the other end, Gerard Deulofeu jinxed past three defenders before firing wide as it remained deadlocked at the break.<\/p>\n<p>Everton almost found themselves ahead immediately after the restart as Steven Pienaar clipped the post following Baines&#8217; cut back and Deulofeu was unable to capitalise on the rebound.<\/p>\n<p>The Toffees eventually took the lead as Romelu Lukaku stepped off the bench to guide Leighton Baines&#8217; 81st-minute cross past a helpless Adrian, much to the relief of the home crowd.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; A late strike from second-half substitute Romelu Lukaku earned Everton a 1-0 win over West Ham in a closely-fought encounter at Goodison Park. The hosts enjoyed the better of play in opening stages but first-half chances were few-and-far between for both sides with West Ham happy to sit deep and look to counter. Steven [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2313,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions\/2313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}