Hammers 1 Sheffield United 1
Blades won 5-4 on pens
Bitter disappointment doesn’t begin to get close as the Hammers bowed out of the Capital One Cup via a missed penalty from £12 million Enner Valencia.
It really was a case of after the Lord Mayor’s Show of Palace came the Capital One milk cart.
After the high of Selhurst Park came the second Boleyn low of the season as we sunk to our latest Boleyn defeat after taking the lead through a Diafra Sakho header.
And with a long Cup run very much on the owners’ agenda pre-season, this was not good news for manager Sam Allardyce.
Two divisions now separate the two sides since their last meeting in 2007 which makes it so much harder to swallow particularly after Sakho had put the us ahead with a well-taken first-half header.
Winston Reid – captain for the evening – however scored an unfortunate second-half own goal.
After that there were few chances and the game drifted to the close of extra time and into the shoot out.
With four pens apiece converted, disaster struck when Valencia – who had wasted a couple of good chances – saw his low effort saved.
Blades’ skipper Michael Doyle then stepped up to seal the win for Nigel Clough’s side .