Scott Parker’s return to West Ham had looked like beginning in painful fashion but instead featured a stunning comeback from 3-0 down. The east London club’s new head coach had watched Cardiff ’s Jack Moylan score a first-half hat-trick, before a rousing response after the break ended with Max Kilman levelling the scores at 3-3 eight minutes from time.

Elsewhere in the Championship, the leaders Middlesbrough went down 2-0 at Wrexham .

Parker had been confirmed as West Ham’s head coach earlier on Wednesday, taking over from Nuno Espírito Santo, who was sacked on Tuesday. The club’s former midfielder was appointed on a two-and-a-half-year contract.

A relieved Parker said afterwards: “I came in here at nine o’clock this morning and met the players for the first time, so I didn’t have a lot of input as such. As you can imagine, it was a difficult half-time talk.…