Vintage Sheri inspires Hammers

ALAN PARDEW hailed Teddy Sheringham as a “special character” after the veteran striker helped West Ham break their eight-match losing streak.

Sheringham, the oldest player in the Premiership at 40, scored the opener in West Ham’s 2-1 win over Blackburn with a precise header from Yossi Benayoun’s floated cross.

He was replaced to a standing ovation by the time Hayden Mullins stabbed home the second but his impact was crucial to West Ham’s first win since the opening day of the season.

Pardew said: “I did feel I might be opening myself up for a bit of trouble with the press — a 40-year-old coming to save the day! “But he is a special character and the trust I have in him is that he takes care of the ball. The key factor for us if we were going to win today was to have somebody to take care of the ball in forward areas and he did that for us.

“He has leadership qualities that are important to the team. It is always nice in teams to have senior player you can look to lean on. I think our squad do lean on him quite heavily because they are quite young and inexperienced.

Pardew has rotated his strikers all season trying to find the right combination but Sheringham was making only his second start of the campaign.

Pardew explained: “I wanted to show faith in Bobby Zamora and Marlon Harewood. I thought it was my strongest pair. It hasn’t worked at times. But always at the back of my mind is the home game that Teddy is going to influence at a great level, which is what he did today.

“The little bit of quality we lacked in the last few games duly arrived from a reliable source. Yossi’s pass and Teddy’s finish was sublime and it set the tone for a very important victory.”

Blackburn manager Mark Hughes rued the loss of Jason Roberts who suffered a fractured metatarsal eight minutes after West Ham’s opener.

“It’s been a disappointing day. We came here with high hopes of winning the game, we lost and we have lost Jason Roberts for a significant amount of time, so not a great day at the office,” said Hughes.

“He has fractured the fifth metatarsal and so will be out for three or four months.”

Opta Fact: Teddy Sheringham increased his record as the oldest goalscorer in the Premiership to almost 40 years and six months.

WEST HAM: Green, Spector, Ferdinand, Gabbidon, McCartney (Dailly 89), Benayoun (Bowyer 81), Mullins, Reo-Coker, Etherington, Sheringham (Harewood 77), Zamora.

BLACKBURN: Friedel, Neill, Khizanishvili, Ooijer, Gray (McEveley 81), Bentley, Mokoena (Gallagher 72), Kerimoglu, Peter, McCarthy, Roberts (Jeffers 28).

Referee: A Wiley (Staffordshire).