Two goals from Wigan centre forward Will Grigg knocked woeful West Ham out of the FA Cup, but that wasn’t the end of David Moyes’s misery.
The West Ham manager saw his influential midfielder Pedro Obiang taken off on a stretcher in the first half and West Ham’s French wing-back Arthur Masuaku was then sent off for spitting in the second half, which means he faces a six-game ban.
Wigan looked sharper from the opening whistle and took the lead in the seventh minute when the busy right-back Nathan Byrne sent in an excellent cross to the far post where Grigg had peeled away from his marker. Though Joe Hart appeared to get a hand to his header from close range the West Ham goalkeeper couldn’t stop the ball crashing into the roof of the net.
The sizeable away support behind Hart’s goal in the first half were to be given more scares before the interval as Wigan created plenty of chances, dominating the midfield with the elegant Nick Powell looked like the best player on the park.
With West Ham hesitant and uncertain every time the ball was played into their box, Wigan sensed they had their opponents’ number and they had the ball in the net four minutes later, but Chey Dunkley was just offside as he headed in Max Power’s free kick.
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The Byrne-Grigg combination almost worked a treat again just after the half-hour mark, but this time the centre-forward’s header was diverted for a corner.
Matters deteriorated further for West Ham when Obiang had to go off after a firm tackle from Power and was replaced by Reece Oxford.
Wigan might have taken further advantage of their dominance had they had just a little more composure in front of goal, but Byrne’s run and shot was comfortably saved by Hart, who then had to dive to his right to stop a long-range effort from Powell.
At the other end Wigan were little short of heroic, their captain Samy Morsy producing two great blocks before Oxford blasted way over the bar deep into injury time at the end of the first half.
Hopes of a West Ham revival took a blow five minutes into the second half when Masuaku was sent off by referee Chris Kavanagh for spitting on the shirt of Powell as the two players exchanged words with West Ham having won a throw-in.
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Masuaku left the pitch slowly and his teammates were similarly lethargic as they conceded a second around the hour-mark. Substitute Joao Mario, who had arrived on loan from Inter Milan on Friday, played a quite dreadful ball which was intercepted and swept forward to Grigg.
He won a penalty as he attempted a flick past Reece Burke, whose arm was extended slightly as it stopped the ball. Grigg sent Hart the wrong way with the spot kick. There was no way back for West Ham and they didn’t come anywhere near finding one.