WEST Ham scored a highly-impressive win over a strong Wigan Athletic outfit thanks to a stunning Carlton Cole goal, although the mood was soured as he was later sent off, while Jack Collison was taken off with another worrying injury.

Cole put the finishing touch to a scintillating one-touch passing move, but he saw red before the interval after picking up two innocuous yellow cards, while Collison was substituted after landing awkwardly and twisting his knee; an injury that manager Gianfranco Zola will hope is not as bad as Valon Behrami's suspected cruciate ligament damage suffered against Manchester City on Saturday.

It was Collison who created the Hammers' first chance with a perfectly-weighted ball for Cole, but the England striker was perhaps too honest for his own good as he elected to stay on his feet and hurdle the challenge of Wigan keeper Chris Kirkland, when a penalty would almost certainly ensued had he gone down.

He earned his rewards for that honesty soon afterwards, however. Scott Parker found David Di Michele with a ball into feet and the Italian cleverly flicked the ball into the path of the returning Mark Noble before peeling off his marker. The young midfielder found the forward again and Di Michele in turn fed Cole, who curled an exquisite shot past the outstretched arm of Kirkland to give the Irons the lead.

The game turned nasty though, and while the visitors' skipper Lucas Neill can consider himself fortunate to have only received a booking for a studs-up challenge on Lee Cattermole, Cole can certainly count himself unlucky to have been shown two yellow cards. The first was for an innocuous sliding tackle in midfield and the second was deemed to be for a dangerous high foot, despite the forward appearing entirely focused on the dropping ball.

Cattermole was then rightly given his marching orders in the second half with a despicable knee-high tackle from behind on Parker.

The collection of unsavoury incidents spoiled the game as a spectacle, but West Ham did manage to create another opportunity, with the impressive Di Michele biding his time before picking out Noble in the centre, only for the Englishman to be denied by a late tackle.

While Zola will be pleased with the result, he will be loath to lose Cole to a ban and, more worryingly, Collison to injury considering the shallow nature of his squad.