Deeney scores again but Ayew earns Hammers draw at Watford

The game was marred by a knee injury to Watford's Mauro Zarate, who had earned the third-minute spot kick that Deeney converted by drawing the foul from Cheikhou Kouyate in the box.

(Reuters)

The Vicarage Road crowd went quiet when the Argentine striker, who went down after a sharp turn just before halftime, needed oxygen on the pitch before being carried off on a stretcher after lengthy treatment and taken to hospital for a scan.

After Deeney's goal, his fourth in five league outings, West Ham hit back strongly and deserved to level when Michail Antonio's left-foot shot, extraordinarily, hit both posts before Ayew, who had been on the pitch just eight minutes, side-footed the rebound into an empty net.

Antonio received a second yellow card for a deliberate handball in the 86th minute but the ninth-placed Hammers survived a late onslaught, in which Deeney came close to notching a winning header, to retain their two-point lead over Watford.

(Reporting by Ian Chadband,; Editing by Neville Dalton)