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The 30-year-old forward seemed to be a clearly terrified signing for the Hammers when he joined from Aston Villa for £12m last month.

But Ings found the net twice in two minutes of the second half to take both his new team out of the bottom three and the atmosphere at London Stadium.

Declan Rice added a good third and substitute Michail Antonio rounded out a much-needed win for boss David Moyes.

All the goals came in the last 20 minutes after a cautious first 70 between two timid teams.

West Ham’s live winger Jarrod Bowen saw a deflected curling effort deflected and then almost scored straight from the corner, with Keylor Navas tapping the ball over his crossbar.

In another corner, Lucas Paquetá’s low shot was again deflected by Felipe at the foot of the post.

Ings had a good chance after Vladimir Coufal’s cross, but was discouraged by Tomas Soucek’s leap and he headed home for goal.

Forest showed just as much ambition as he did in drawing with Manchester City last weekend, although Lukasz Fabianski had to deflect Felipe’s header and hold off Morgan Gibbs-White’s 20-yard strike in the first half.

After the break, Aaron Cresswell’s corner was met by Soucek at the near post, but his deflected header went over the top.

Then a clever play involving Paquetá, Ings and Said Benrahma culminated in Bowen’s low shot at the foot of Navas’s far post.

Forest was crying out for a penalty when Renan Lodi’s shot hit the hand of Ben Johnson, but for the third game in a row West Ham got away with it, although in this case the shot was probably too close to take a penalty.

The Hammers had to make a change in goal when Fabianski was caught on the side of the head by Felipe, with Alphonse Areola coming on in his place.

But they immediately took the lead as Bowen drilled the ball low and across the goal where Ings expertly guided him.

The goal survived a VAR check for offside, and in the blink of an eye, Ings landed his second shot, another sneak shot from Benrahma’s cross into the six-yard box.

Suddenly West Ham looked like a scoring team, possibly for the first time this season.

Rice sprang into action in the 78th minute, picking up Benrahma’s clip and firing a great effort over Navas and inside the far post.

With Forest on the ropes, Antonio provided the coup de grace when he headed in a cross from teammate Pablo Fornals.