The Hammers had the better of Villa on a hot and muggy day in East London and in truth were unfortunate not to have scored more goals. A fantastic piece of referring from Mike Dean to allow Kevin Nolan’s winner in the 40th minute was in the end, enough to separate the two sides.
Mark Noble hit a free-kick into the box, which hit a Villa defender. The ball then dropped to Ricardo Vaz Te in an offside position. He expertly cut the ball back for Nolan to find the net before the assistant referee raised his flag for offside. Dean then consulted with his assistant before over-ruling him and giving the goal, having spotted that the ball hit a defender before dropping for Vaz Te.
New signing Modibo Maiga was given 10 minutes at the end of the game and he almost added a second when he rounded Shay Given but saw his shot cleared off the line by Ciaran Clark.