No Mills & Boon ending for Macclesfield

It was touch and go whether Richard Tracey's header after a mere three minutes was indeed offside but Town were not disheartened when it was ruled out. Chris Byrne's dangerous left foot put the ball just over the bar from 25 yards, while Christian Dailly defused another dodgy moment in the box. Macclesfield forced corner after corner and the interesting youngster Rickie Lambert drew a good save from David James.

But more than once the gulf showed when the home side needed that extra second to think out what to do with the ball, permitting instinctive defending from West Ham. When the visitors got their act together, it was because they thought faster - Macclesfield could not read the opposition's more complex attacking ideas. And. of course, it was crucial that the Hammers scored at the textbook killer moment, just before halftime.

Quite why the Upton Park faithful give a monkey's about Paolo Di Canio's departure when they have young Jermain Defoe around is anyone's guess. Di Canio was absent yesterday, naturally. This time it was flu or hamstring trouble or a plague of locusts or some such. Hence on the off-chance that he transfers to another club before the fourth round, he won't be Cup-tied. Gosh. What a coincidence.

Forget him. Defoe's pace and finishing told their own exciting story. When Sebastien Schemmel put him through down the right, Defoe got ahead of his marker to put the ball away. By the time he bagged his second in the 72nd minute, this time from 20 yards, West Ham were in total control.

John Moncur's wasteful dismissal nine minutes later made no material difference. He contrived to earn himself two bookings within barely as many seconds, one for a scything tackle from behind on Byrne, and a second for the vigour with which he grabbed Byrne's shirt and lifted the player to his feet. Byrne then introduced his forehead to Moncur's brow, a gentle contact from which Moncur reeled after a long pause. Players stormed in from all corners and a silly tiff ensued.

"I just tried to help the fella up," claimed Moncur risibly afterwards.

"I got two yellow cards and a head-butt in the space of ten seconds. Not bad."

Even Moncur's manager Glenn Roeder told the player it would have been better to have been less "helpful" and stayed on the field.

So West Ham had ten men when Joe Cole capitalised on defensive hesitation to drive home West Ham's third in classy fashion, once again illustrating the superior side's ability to think faster. It was Cole's first goal for his club this season.

So in the end there was no romance, no fairy tale. Just a job well done, for nothing is inevitable in the FA Cup.

Incidentally, that hoary old adage about death and taxes does not originate with Benjamin Franklin.

When he said it, he was paraphrasing the writer Daniel Defoe. There is a symmetry in that, now that West Ham have another Defoe weaving wondrous stories of his own.