Nayef Aguerd scored one of the most valuable goals of his career last night when thumping in the headed winner against Freiburg.
And it came from what is becoming the usual and hugely valued source – a James Ward-Prowse corner – and Aguerd’s celebrations were immense.
His regular central defensive partner, skipper Kurt Zouma, and Tomas Soucek have has also been on the end of JWP corners which have resulted in goals and this is the second from Nayef.
It was a fine goal and came following a dramatic equaliser at the end of intense pressure from the German outfit,
Aguerd arrived late in the box to crash home his effort after Lucas Paqueta’s similar effort had given the Hammers their lead.
The central defender has come in for some fierce stick over recent games when errors have lef to goals and spot kicks but he made up for much of that with the goal
And commenting on www.whufc.com he said: “It was a nice feeling. We all know that we are performing from set pieces – Prowsey’s delivery is wonderful so we work a lot in training to score these goals.
“On Thursday it was me, it was Kurt against Luton. Tomáš has scored from set pieces, so we work on those.
“We are very happy to achieve these three points in this atmosphere, it’s a good win.”
He added: “The forward players were unbelievable. It wasn’t only the three who started, also on the bench we had Saïd, [Danny, Divin]. Mick was injured and didn’t play so we have a very good team with a lot of quality.
“We’ll keep working and hopefully it will stay the same.
“Now we return to the Premier League. Newcastle are very tough to play, like all the teams in the league.
“But we will be playing at home, in front of our fans, so I hope it will be a great afternoon. We will give everything to make them happy.”