West Ham received huge praise from pundit Owen Hargraves following the match at Aston Villa last night.
It’s rare to hear such a eulogy from anybody in the game given the bad publicity we have received in the past but Hargreaves has no doubts that the club are “starting to build something.”
The Hammers showed all their grit and resilience in the 0-0 draw but despite the shortage of goals, the former Bayern Munich and Manchester United player reserved special praise for striker Seb Haller.
Defensively the team were outstanding last night and as mentioned earlier it’s going to be difficult for any of those on the sidelines to force their way back in apart from injury intervention.
The manager, however, is in a very good place on that front and a big result against Manchester United at the weekend would send expectations soaring among the Hammers faithful.
Hargreaves – like a growing number of observers – appears to accept that this is a very different West Ham to the club we have watched over recent years.
Speaking on the Premier League’s official website, Hargreaves said: “I think they’re building something there, and I think that the appointment of Pellegrini was the right one because he’s a safe pair of hands, he’s calm, he’s experienced.
“He’s got a good goalkeeper in Fabianski, he’s got a good back four, two strong centre-backs played really well today, Diop, I think is really impressive.”
“I thought Fornals looked very good when came on, I’d like to see more of him, but I thought the best player on the pitch was Sebastien Haller, every time I watch him, he plays really well, and he’s going to score some goals this season.”
And great news today re Sheffield Utd. Remember their owner Kevin McCabe who took us to court over Tevez? The court case in which a judge tried, with the help of some self publicising journos, to estimate the number of points Tevez was personally responsible for in the games he played in 2006/7. Having decided that since that number of points meant the Blades were relegated we owed them £24m. Well he has just lost a court case which forces him to sell his half of the club for £5m. The club is valued at £100m!!! I have been having a bad day since I read that I have walking round with a grin that is making my face ache. Think that is called poetic justice.
Yes but we only had 1 or two shots on their goal and we should be beating teams like villa ! The passes were to slow the build up was slow no penetration .needs to improve !