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Emmanuel Emenike and Dmitri Payet both scored twice as West Ham beat Blackburn Rovers 5-1 to seal their place in the sixth round of the FA Cup.
Blackburn had failed to beat West Ham in their last 11 meetings but an upset looked as though it could be on the cards when Ben Marshall steered in from outside the area to give them the lead.
Slaven Bilic’s side battled past Liverpool across two games in the previous round and drew on that resilience again to turn the game on its head, with Victor Moses’ shot evading Jason Steele’s grasp before Dimitri Payet’s fine free-kick made it 2-1.
Chris Taylor was sent off for a second bookable offence early in the second half to leave Paul Lambert’s side facing a mountain to climb to reach the sixth round, and Emenike struck just past the hour mark to put the visitors firmly in control.
Cheikhou Kouyate was given a straight red card for bringing down Adam Henley as he raced through on goal, but Emenike and Payet each doubled their tallies late on to secure safe progress for the visitors into the last eight.
~Goal