Fit-again Tomas Soucek came off the bench to score his first two goals in the Championship and help West Ham thrash nine-man Lincoln City 6-0 on a horror night for the hosts at the ProAmpac Stadium.

Tom Hamer saw red after just 160 seconds for a reckless challenge on Joel Veltman, while Conor McGrandles' foul on Jarrod Bowen - when the Hammers captain was about to race free on goal - had the Imps two men down after 23 minutes.

The Imps stubbornly held out until just before the break when Konstantinos Mavropanos met a corner from Bowen to head home the opener.

Substitute Edvin Austbo curled home a stunning second soon after the interval, and Bowen made it three two minutes later when he found the back of the net for the eighth time in 13 games this season.

Pablo added a fourth from a corner in the 75th minute and there was still time for Czech Republic international Soucek, making just his second appearance of the season after suffering an ankle injury at the World Cup, to complete a chastening night for the Imps with a late double.

Victory lifted Nuno Espirito Santo's side up to third in the Championship, while Lincoln's heaviest defeat of the season leaves them winless at home since they returned to the second tier after a 65-year absence.

Their prospects of upstaging the highly-fancied visitors suffered a first major setback inside three minutes when referee Andrew Kitchen wasted no time showing Hamer a straight red card for his badly timed two-footed tackle on Veltman.

Despite that, a bombardment of long throws and set-piece deliveries from the Imps - as well as an attacking energy charged by the atmosphere of the occasion - had West ham pressed back at times despite being up against 10 men.

But a heavy touch from McGrandles that was pounced on by Bowen, and the defender's inexplicable decision to pull the West Ham forward down as he was about to break free on goal, changed all that.

Now two men short, any grip Lincoln had on the game was gone and they could only boast 19% possession by the time Mavropanos' towering header put the Hammers 1-0 up in the 45th minute.

Austbo came off the bench to make it two with the pick of the night's goals, cutting in from the left before bending the ball into the top corner from the edge of the box.

Bowen then drove at the Imps from the right just moments later, skipping inside before beating Lincoln goalkeeper George Wickens at his near post with a low shot, and when Pablo crashed home his header to make it 4-0, Imps supporters began streaming out of the ground.

Soucek then showed great control in the box to score his first goal since West Ham beat Everton in the Premier League in April, before capping a terrific night for the Hammers by pouncing for their sixth in the 89th minute when Wickens spilled the ball as he tried to smother a low cross.

West Ham's midweek trip to Lincoln was a match that has come to define the decline and rise of these two clubs.

It was on a Wednesday in Prague just over three years ago that Bowen scored a last-minute goal against Italian side Fiorentina to help the Hammers win the Europa Conference League.

A decade ago, by contrast, Lincoln were still playing non-league football.

And while three promotions in nine years for Lincoln and West Ham's relegation from the Premier League last term put the two sides in the same division for the first time since 1957-58, they remain leagues apart in terms of stature and financial clout.

The squad West Ham took to Lincoln cost more that £200m to assemble - and the £40m the London club spent on buying Max Kilman from Wolves in 2024 is about four times more than Lincoln have spent on transfers in their 142-year existence.

The ProAmpac Stadium - which has Lincoln's 11th century Gothic cathedral as a picturesque backdrop – is also the smallest ground the Hammers will visit in the Championship this season.

It was a ground where groans of disappointment echoed around when the locals realised that two first-half dismissals would leave them unable to contain a Hammers side that could call on Soucek and Argentina international Taty Castellanos off the bench.

But even before that star pairing were called upon, Norway Under-21 international Austbo sparked the second-half scoring spree that ensured West Ham left Lincolnshire with another huge win - having beaten the Imps 6-1 on their last visit in the second tier 69 years ago.

Lincoln City joint head coach Tom Shaw told BBC Radio Lincolnshire:

"It's the toughest of experiences that you could put yourself into. They have the best quality in the division and we are defending for 70 minutes with nine men.

"But the overriding feeling of it all is that spell when we only had 10. For the majority of it, they felt us.

"We didn't get to live out a proper game with a full quota of players against a tough side. But the signs were there, with our physicality and our bits with the ball, in that first spell [that showed] we could have caused some problems.

"It is a very tough experience for the players to go through, but we are very proud in what is the most brutal scenario against this level of opponent. We are proud of how they just stuck at it."

West Ham boss Nuno Espirito Santo told BBC London:

"Coming to Lincoln were knew it was going to be tough, and of course the red cards made everything different but we still had to work.

"And credit to Lincoln, with 10 men they were still in the game and organised and creating set pieces and long balls that we had to deal with.

"Then it required patience and mobility. We managed that situation and scored some beautiful goals.

"We cannot slow down, the goal difference [this season] might be important but more than anything it's the confidence, the individual confidence of the player. Some player who scored today, it's huge for us because we will need them in the future and it was positive. It was a very good day for us."