West Ham manager Harry Redknapp has cancelled this year's Christmas party following an incident last year in which his players went out wearing fancy dress and which ended with the arrest of Neil Ruddock and Trevor Sinclair.
Yesterday, in an open and enthralling game, his players appeared to defy him. The entire side, but particularly the defence, wandered around incognito. There was goodwill to most men, a boxful of crackers and pressies galore.
Poor Sheffield Wednesday. Saturday's results had gone in their favour but they are still cut adrift like a naughty deckhand, five points behind Watford, with Manchester United next up. They have yet to win away from home. In fact before yesterday they had scored only one goal on their travels. Yet here they scored three and led 2-1 and 3-2, but ultimately went home looking as impoverished as Bob Cratchit.
One reason was that their defence was as inept as that of West Ham and at times both defences were incredibly lax.
West Ham had scored just once in seven games - in fact when the excellent Paulo Wanchope opened the floodgates in the 28th minute it ended a run of six-and-a-half goalless hours for the London club.
The other reason for Wednesday's misfortune can be traced to the two decisions by the referee Alan Wilkie who first reduced Wednesday to 10 men when he red carded Danny Sonner and then awarded West Ham a penalty when he judged Wim Jonk had brought down Sinclair.
"You only have to look at the player who went down," Wednesday manager, Danny Wilson said. He claimed that Jonk had not touched Sinclair, an opinion amplified by subsequent replays. Di Canio, inevitably, played a significant role in his first match against the club with whom he quarrelled. Captain for the day, he tucked away the penalty and was judged man of the match.
Petter Rudi had equalised 10 minutes after Wanchope's opener having missed the best chance of the match in the fourth minute.
Jonk put Wednesday ahead three minutes into the second half after a half-hearted clearance from Steve Potts and Di Canio levelled from the spot in the 63rd minute before Andy Booth restored Wednesday's lead with a header three minutes later.
Marc-Vivien Foe scored his first goal for West Ham in 22 appearances and Frank Lampard got the winner.
Wednesday looked desolate.
WEST HAM: Hislop, Potts, Ferdinand, Ruddock, Sinclair, Cole, Lampard, Foe, Keller, Di Canio, Wanchope. Subs Not Used: Forrest, Moncur, Charles, Minto, Omoyinmi. Booked: Foe. Goals: Wanchope 28, Di Canio 62 pen, Foe 70, Lampard 76.
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY: Pressman, Nolan (Thome 82), Atherton, Walker, Hinchcliffe, Alexandersson, Jonk, Sonner, Rudi (Cresswell 81), Booth, De Bilde. Subs Not Used: Srnicek, Sibon, Briscoe. Sent Off: Sonner (68). Booked: Jonk, Sonner, Booth, Nolan. Goals: Rudi 38, Jonk 48, Booth 66.
Referee: A Wilkie (Chester Le Street).
