No panic as Irons settle into ‘Pelle’s way’

It came as no surprise to hear Manuel Pellegrini say last night that the best thing about the Hammers win over AFC Wimbledon was the team’s “calmness.”

Patience and a “play your football” approach has been the hallmark of Pellegrini sides and I can recall Hammers teams who would have been charging forward in a panic having passed the hour mark behind in such a game.

Instead, this time  the team continued to play the ball around without ever resorting to a direct get it forward quickly approach.

And for me that was  significant because it showed very clearly that the Pellegrini mentality on how we will play really is penetrating the players’ minds.

Pellegrini commented: “I was sure that if we continued playing [in that way] we would score the goal. That was the best thing about the performance tonight, that we kept calm.

“We didn’t score the goal [until the 63rd minute], but we kept calm, we kept moving, we tried to create space and eventually we scored the goals that we needed to win the game.”

It was never easy and the AFC defence was outstanding but we also need to remember I guess that it’s not easy playing a team that’s a man down and determined to present two banks of four.

I would like to have seen us a yard quicker and stepping things up a tad around their box but by and large we did the job in the end efficiently and it’s clear (to me anyway) that West Ham are on the cusp of a new and exciting tactical approach.

Wolves will be very different of course as we return to the PL but the signs are decent with patience – a quality attached to all top clubs – the key.