West Ham are counting the cost of their dramatic FA Cup replay win over Liverpool.
Angelo Ogbonna’s header in the last minute of extra time finally saw off the Reds 2-1 on Tuesday night and set up a fifth-round trip to Blackburn Rovers.
But the Hammers lost three players to injury and at least three more were struggling at the end of the gruelling tie.
Winston Reid and Joey O’Brien pulled up injured, Cheikhou Kouyate took a whack on the head, Enner Valencia would surely have gone off had all the substitutes not already been used, while Michail Antonio and Andy Carroll also appeared to pick up knocks.
With James Tomkins, Manuel Lanzini and Diafra Sakho already sidelined, manager Slaven Bilic could be thin on numbers ahead of Saturday’s Premier League trip to Norwich City.
“Unfortunately we had to pay the price with a few of them and we can only hope they won’t be out for long,” said Bilic.
“Cheikhou felt a little uncoordinated but hopefully he will be okay. Enner looks like a bruise. Joey hadn’t played for long time so we hope it’s just tightness, but with Reid it doesn’t look good to me.”
West Ham took the lead just before half-time through Antonio’s volley, only for Philippe Coutinho to level from a free-kick.
But with penalties looming Dimitri Payet swung in a free-kick and Ogbonna powered in his header to secure the win.
“I was very happy to score in the last minute against Liverpool,” said the Italian defender.
“It was my first goal for West Ham and in front of our supporters, so I am really happy for my team-mates and for everybody.
“It’s a good result for us and we have to look forward now.”
Reds boss Juergen Klopp picked a youthful side again but they can consider themselves unlucky to have come up just short.
Kevin Stewart insists the club’s youngsters can be proud of their performances over both ties.
The 22-year-old midfielder told the club website: “It’s got some of the young players’ names out there, showed people what they can do. There are a lot of positives to take from the FA Cup.
“I think the attitude was really good. If we made mistakes, we won the ball back, we made really good reactions, we made chances.
“The only thing was... we didn’t put the chances away.”