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London, (Reuters):- Crystal Palace’s Jean-Philippe Mateta netted a brace as they romped to a 5-2 Premier League rout of West Ham United on Sunday with four goals inside 31 minutes including an exquisite bicycle kick by Eberechi Eze.
Palace are 14th in the table, 11 points above the relegation zone, while West Ham are eighth on 48 points, but the two teams directly above them on 50 points apiece — Newcastle and Manchester United — have two games in hand.
Michael Olise opened the floodgates in the seventh minute, before Eze’s strike nine minutes later had the crowd at a sun-drenched Selhurst Park roaring.
Hammers keeper Lukasz Fabianski saved a shot by Mateta with his right foot, but the ball looped up to Eze to fire home the rebound into the roof of the net.
West Ham’s Emerson scored an own goal in the 20th minute, then Mateta netted his first of two in the 31st for a 4-0 lead that had West Ham manager David Moyes well out of his technical area screaming at his players.
In his 693 games as a Premier League manager, it was the earliest that one of his teams had fallen behind 4-0.
Michail Antonio pulled one back in the 40th minute with West Ham’s only shot on target before Mateta bagged his second in the 64th.
Palace keeper Dean Henderson gifted West Ham an 89th-minute goal when he made a mess of a pass back from defender Tyrick Mitchell.
While the own goal was registered to Mitchell, Henderson was to blame as he let it bounce over his foot and could not stop it from rolling into the net despite a desperate lunge.
Palace took 18 shots, including seven on target, to West Ham’s four and had 61.3% possession.
Photos by Associated Press