McBurnie late spot kick hands Sheffield United draw with West Ham
Sheffield United substitute Ollie McBurnie scored a penalty deep in stoppage time to give the bottom side a deserved 2-2 Premier League home draw with sixth-placed West Ham United on Sunday in a game that saw both sides have a man sent off late on.
McBurnies’s strike in the 103rd minute is the latest on record in the Premier League and it was nothing less than his struggling side deserved after a spirited display.
The Yorkshire club have 10 points from 21 games and are seven points adrift of the safety zone, while West Ham have 35 and are eight points outside the top four.
The hosts started brightly but their shoddy finishing was punished when the Hammers’ Ivorian winger Maxwel Cornet pounced on a deflected Danny Ings shot and fired the ball into the net first-time in the 28th minute.
Playing his first league game since arriving on loan from Villarreal on 5 January, Ben Brereton Diaz got the Blades back in the game just before the break.
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West Ham goalkeeper Alphonse Areola parried a header from William Osula and the England-born Chile international took a touch before thumping the ball home.
The home side looked to be on course for their 16th league defeat of the season when West Ham’s James Ward-Prowse scored from the spot in the 79th minute after Ings was upended by Gustavo Hamer.
Their chances of staging any sort of a comeback looked to be over when substitute Rhian Brewster was shown a straight red card for a strong challenge.
However, there was one final twist as West Ham defender Vladimir Coufal picked up his second yellow for what looked an innocuous challenge in the 97th minute.
From the resulting free kick, Areola injured himself while fouling McBurnie in the box and the striker stepped up to slam the ball passed substitute goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski to snatch a well-earned point.
“I thought we were really good. My side has character, resilience and a bit of bottle,” Blades boss Chris Wilder said.
“We have to bridge the gap and we have some good players.
“We had to go more direct at points but we were more than that today … I felt we had control of the game and for Ben (Brereton Diaz) to get a goal, he will be an asset for us,” he added.