Video: the fight club - when team-mates go bad

Someone at Stoke City needs to remind Ricardo Fuller that strikers are supposed to strike the ball past goalkeepers, not strike their own players. The Jamaica forward was sent off yesterday for slapping his own captain, Andy Griffin, in an astonishing example of a self-inflicted wound.

Clearly distraught after Stoke had lost an early lead to Carlton Cole’s 51st-minute equaliser for West Ham, Fuller remonstrated with Griffin, who had been unable to clear the ball, then walked over to him and smacked him in the face. Michael Jones, refereeing only his fifth Premier League match, was looking directly at the incident and showed the Jamaica forward a red card.

Stoke, without an away win all season, had dropped into the bottom three on Boxing Day, and although their chances of escaping it yesterday did not entirely disappear down the tunnel with Fuller - West Ham’s freak winner from Diego Tristán did not arrive until two minutes from time - Tony Pulis, the Stoke manager, was understandably displeased with his top scorer.

“I’ll deal with it in-house,” Pulis said. “Andy and Ric actually get on very well. They were exchanging shirts at a Christmas party. It’s disappointing, and we’ve shot ourselves in the foot again, but you can’t condone what Ric has done. The game is very passionate, and Ricardo is a very volatile person, but he wasn’t in the dressing-room when we came in. He was on the bus, he was so disappointed with what he had done.”

It had certainly helped West Ham’s cause. They had won 4-1 away to Portsmouth on Boxing Day but were finding life harder against the side with the worst away record in the division. Gianfranco Zola, the manager, was delighted to have taken six points from the two games, but this was, perhaps, a warning of what life might be like at Upton Park if Craig Bellamy is sold during the transfer window. Bellamy, who had made Portsmouth’s life such a misery on Friday, was suspended yesterday after receiving five yellow cards and West Ham sorely missed his pace and inventiveness.

Zola, though, refuses to accept that Bellamy’s departure is a foregone conclusion. “The target is to improve the team, so we’re going to try to keep our best players,” he said. “The club has told me that the financial situation is not a problem.”

Basic defending is, however, as was shown after only four minutes when Abdoulaye Faye escaped James Collins at the far post to head home from Danny Pugh’s corner.

West Ham were exerting pressure on the Stoke defence and were at their most incisive when they avoided playing to Faye’s strength by hitting high balls into the box. It took a pass of more cunning to work a breakthrough. It came after 51 minutes when Scott Parker played the ball towards the left where Cole was up against Griffin. The West Ham forward charged down Griffin’s attempted clearance, turned on the loose ball and curled it home.

That provoked Fuller’s rush of blood, but if the incident suggested that Stoke’s morale was low, it was hardly evident as they mounted breakaways of their own as well as continuing to repel West Ham’s surges. Only two minutes remained when David Di Michele, receiving the ball from Tristán, waited for his moment before finding Cole 15 yards out with his back to goal. Cole turned and shot and the ball hit Tristán, who had continued his run, and was deflected past Thomas Sorensen to give the former Spain forward his first goal in English football.

Zola was delighted that his players had come back from behind for the second time in three days. “It tells you a lot about the willingness to succeed,” he said. “It’s a strange league - six points have put us up in tenth. But other teams can do the same.”

West Ham (4-1-3-2): R Green 6 J Faubert 4 M Upson 5 J Collins 5 H Ilunga 5 S Parker 8 V Behrami 5 L Boa Morte 6 J Collison 5 D Di Michele 4 C Cole 5 Substitutes: H Mullins (for Parker, 77min), D Tristán (for Collison, 77), J Spector (for Di Michele, 88). Not used: J Lastuvka, L Bowyer, F Sears, B N’Gala. Next: Newcastle (a).

Stoke (4-4-2): T Sorensen 7 A Griffin 6 R Shawcross 6 Abdoulaye Faye 8 D Higginbotham 5 R Delap 6 G Whelan 6 S Olofinjana 6 D Pugh 5 R Fuller 4 R Cresswell 5 Substitutes: V Péricard 5 (for Pugh, 52min), A Davies 6 (for Griffin, 58).

Not used: S Simonsen, L Lawrence, T Soares, M Tonge, I Sonko. Next: Liverpool (h).

Referee M Jones Attendance 34,477