A reinvigorated West ham brushed aside Blackpool 4-0 to move into second place in the Championship on Saturday.
Two goals from Sam Baldock, playing only his second game, one from John Carew and Jack Collison respectively gave Blackpool only their third league defeat of the season.
Prior to the international break the Seasiders thrashed Bristol City 5-0, whereas West Ham lost 1-0 at home to Ipswich.
But it seems the week off helped the Hammers, as they forgot the lack-lustre performance of two weeks ago.
Their line-up had greatly changed; Papa Bouba Diop was in for Mark Noble for his first start, Carew replaced Carlton Cole up-front, Julian Faubert returned on the right, as did Collison in the centre.
Baldock, who was so poorly used on the right against Ipswich was moved into a more central position off the striker as Henri Lansbury was on the bench.
Switching Baldock’s position was the only logical move for Sam Allardyce as the former MK Dons striker was very ineffectual in his home debut.
He made a shaky start to this game, pulling out of tackles and under-hitting passes, but showed plenty of enthusiasm, chasing down lost causes and always looking to get behind the Blackpool defence.
He was rewarded with his first goal at Championship level just after half time as he beat the offside trap and cooly stroked the ball past the Blackpool goalkeeper Matt Gilks.
By the time his second came eight minutes later he looked to have found his feet, Carew tried to bundle ball and keeper into the net, it spilled out to Baldock who nipped in front of the Blackpool defender to poke it in from close range.
Carew had got the rout started in the 12th minute, heading in from close range after a well-delivered cross from Faubert and Collison made it four after a well worked pull-back from George McCartney.
It is hard to believe that both these teams were in the same league last year, and on the strength of this game only one will be returning to the Premiership at the first attempt.
Blackpool showed little invention and failed to trouble Manuel Almunia, on loan from Arsenal in the West Ham goal.
They rarely got the ball up to Kevin Philips to create any real chances and their only midfielder to beat a defender and show composure on the ball was actually Tomas Ince, son of former Manchester United and West Ham midfielder Paul.
His move to United caused such consternation amongst the West Ham faithful that he has not been able to return to Upton Park without receiving boos from almost every section of the ground. Tom’s Boleyn debut passed many by and he did not receive much, if any, serious abuse.
Blackpool are in quite a good position in the league but have presumably been playing better than this for most of the season so far as in this game their defence could not live with the movement between Carew and Baldock with his runs from deep regularly testing the offside trap.
John Carew was very impressive and looks a class above most strikers at this level, with superb touch and awareness, he holds the ball up and can bring people into play.
Now that Baldock has blown away his early nerves he could form a promising partnership with the Norwegian striker.
Dioup also got better as the game went on, initially miss-placing passes and looking a bit off the pace. But he quickly got into his stride and successfully broke up play and moved the ball through midfield.
West Ham managed to put the inexplicable Ipswich game behind them for a convincing victory ahead of a run of tricky games against Southampton and Brighton away, then Leicester at home.
If the Hammers continue to play like that they could beat any team in the Championship, whether they can keep up this level of performance only time will tell, and will probably depend on the number of injuries sustained over the course of the season.
