What was your favorite match of the entire 06/07 EPL season? Reader Damir Selimovic submitted this story.
West Ham United 3 v 4 Tottenham Hotspur
Upton Park; March 4, 2007
If you are searching for a game to simplify the EPL, to really understand why it’s one of the favorites among all the rest of the leagues in the world, well this game stood out from the rest.
The EPL consists of 20 teams which play 38 games per season, which leaves us with 760 highly entertaining games to enjoy. The reason I chose the West Ham vs. Hotspur game was because of pure drama from the start to the end.
The game started off with Argentine Carlos Tevez scoring his first goal in the 15th minute, and what a wonderful goal it was, among the best for the season; West Ham doubling the score with a first goal by Mark Noble to go into the half 2-0 up.
Not even first-ever Premiership strikes from Mark Noble and Carlos Tevez, plus a late Bobby Zamora header, could give the East Enders the victory they so desperately needed in their Everest-like task to avoid relegation as Jermain Defoe, Teemu Tainio, Dimitar Berbatov and Paul Stalteri cut the safety rope.
But late, late goals by Berbatov and Stalteri almost certainly condemned the hapless Hammers to the drop in this London derby that saw the Hammers surrender valuable leads in each half.
This game had it all: Good goals, two beautiful free kicks by Tevez and Berbatov, a good volley by Noble, an excellent header from Zamora, cool composure by Defoe to score a penalty, great buildup by Spurs to have Tainio put a rocket in the back of the net, and an excellent last second counter-attack by Spurs to put the final touches on a brilliant back and forth game.
Normally a game that consisted of seven yellow cards would overshadow the action but it was completely different in this game. With the season coming to a close, the game West Ham let slip through their hands twice could have came back to haunt them if Manchester United had won.