Ings rescues West Ham with late equaliser in a draw with Burnley

West Ham United’s Danny Ings scored a stoppage-time equaliser in a 2-2 draw against Burnley at the London Stadium on Sunday to deny his former club their first Premier League victory of 2024.

The result moved Burnley off the bottom and up to 19th with 14 points in the standings – level with Sheffield United but with a superior goal difference – while West Ham are seventh with 43 points, one ahead of Brighton & Hove Albion.

Burnley have not won a game since before Christmas, a run of 10 matches which leaves Vincent Kompany’s side 10 points from the safety zone while Ings’s first goal of the season could not have come at a better time for West Ham.

“The first half was not good enough and we didn’t create too much. In the second half we showed a reaction and in the end they were unlucky not to win the game,” said Ings, who had helped Burnley gain promotion to the top flight in 2014.

“Our rhythm wasn’t there, in parts of the second half it still wasn’t there. It was one of those performances.”

READ ALSO: Umar Sadiq nets first LaLiga goal in 2024

David Fofana gave Burnley a shock lead in the 11th minute with a rocket from outside the box to end their goal drought in the league which had lasted nearly 5-1/2 hours after their last goal came against Liverpool in early February.

West Ham struggled to make any sort of impact in the rain and things went from bad to worse on the stroke of halftime when defender Konstantinos Mavropanos stuck a leg out to stop Josh Cullen’s pass in the box and diverted it into his own net.

As the referee blew for halftime, the 2-0 scoreline prompted a crescendo of boos from the frustrated home fans and that seemed to spur West Ham on when they came out for the second half where David Moyes’s side scored in 30 seconds.

Burnley failed to clear the ball soon after the restart and Lucas Paqueta pounced to run clear of the defence before slipping his shot past goalkeeper James Trafford to draw a roar of approval from the home fans.

West Ham thought they had scored a late equaliser when substitute Danny Ings scored against his former club but VAR ruled the goal out for Michail Antonio being offside in the build-up.

But Ings was not to be denied a goal and he made it 2-2 in the 91st minute when he controlled Mohammed Kudus’s cross, turned on the spot and fired home.

Ings nearly won it for West Ham in the fifth minute of stoppage time when he blasted another strike at goal but the ball crashed off the crossbar and Antonio could not score from the rebound as the two teams shared the spoils.

Burnley’s Sander Berge also seemed to have handled the ball when making a clearance late in the game but no handball was given, a sore point for Moyes.

“Obviously I think there’s a handball. Sander Berge headed it on to his own hand. You don’t put your hand in front of your face when you’re going to clear the ball. It certainly hit his arm that’s for sure,” he said.

“We probably looked a bit hungover from the game on Thursday night (a 1-0 loss at Freiburg) but we certainly came back into it. We missed a load of chances at the end.”