West Ham United boss Sam Allardyce was delighted with Carlton Cole's influence on their 1-0 win over Sunderland.
Diafra Sakho's late goal saw West Ham United edge past Sunderland 1-0 at the Boleyn Ground.
At half-time, the manager sent on Cole to support the No15 and the move paid off.
"I wanted to give more support to Sakho and, without Enner Valencia and Andy Carroll being with us because of injuries, Carlton has only just come back from injury so I couldn't start him - that's why I played one out and out striker from the start.
"At half-time, the system I chose wasn't working as well as I'd hoped in terms of creating goal scoring opportunities, so Carlton came on and had no problem doing 45 minutes. It did us good getting Stewart Downing in the hole and it's paid off for us.
"Our leading goal scorer has got the headlines, and credit also to our defence for restricting them to one shot on target in the second half. Everything was how it should have turned out."
