Scott Parker’s return to West Ham had looked like beginning in painful fashion but instead featured a stunning comeback from 3-0 down. The east London club’s new head coach had watched Cardiff’s Jack Moylan score a first-half hat-trick, before a rousing response after the break ended with Max Kilman levelling the scores at 3-3 eight minutes from time. Elsewhere in the Championship, the leaders Middlesbrough went down 2-0 at Wrexham.
Parker had been confirmed as West Ham’s head coach earlier on Wednesday, taking over from Nuno Espírito Santo, who was sacked on Tuesday. The club’s former midfielder was appointed on a two-and-a-half-year contract. A relieved Parker said afterwards: “I came in here at nine o’clock this morning and met the players for the first time, so I didn’t have a lot of input as such.
As you can imagine, it was a difficult half-time talk. I just helped them tactically and told them: ‘OK, this is the way it needs to be now.’ “Certainly out of possession, we needed to be more aggressive. There were tactical changes and substitutions, and we became more front-footed.
We took a few more risks.” Parker admitted he could have skipped the dugout and “sat in a box” with his appointment confirmed on matchday. But the new head coach – who won promotion to the Premier League with his former clubs Bournemouth, Burnley and Fulham – chose to spend the night on the touchline. The biggest positive is the team we saw in the second half.
These boys have come off two defeats. You come to Cardiff away and you’re 3-0 down at half-time. I can only imagine what they were feeling.
They showed a lot of character and that pleased me the most.” Moylan halted the initial feelgood factor among the visiting support in the 11th minute at Cardiff City Stadium. His right-foot drive from the tip of the D left the visiting goalkeeper Mads Hermansen helpless as it sped into the top left corner. Moylan was then brought down for a penalty – the Ireland midfielder got up to spank it home to the left as Hermansen dived right in the 37th minute.
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