On the day a hero was needed we found eleven!

 

By Pete Ellis

 

With news that Payet was on strike, wanted away, and on the back of two abysmal results versus City and United, you could be forgiven for thinking that this was going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back in West Ham’s season  of woe.

The thought of facing the only England manager in history with a 100% record in a London derby didn’t fill me with glee either, especially as the man that knows his way around the rule book takes great delight in giving Hammers fans a hard time.

Yep, the dark clouds were over Stratford, and armageddon was upon us…….or was it?

We have all voiced concerns this season about something  not being quite right, and with Bilic publicly naming and shaming our supposed talisman as the problem, and laying out some of the behaviour, the thing that was “not quite right” was the man we had all fell in love with last season.

He’s a great player, great free kick taker, and a great talent. HE could have been a West Ham Great too, but he has no interest in that and probably never did.

At our lowest point, we needed a hero. On Saturday we got 11 of them.

Carroll was getting into positions that he hadn’t previously, Antonio got more assists in 20 minutes than Ozil did in 20 games, and Lanzini rounded it all off with a perfect counter attack goal and jumped in with the fans to celebrate.

It’s almost as if he knew we needed to feel the players were with us, and for me that’s exactly what he did.

Tevez-esque if truth be told and for club morale, both players and fans, it was worth the yellow card.

We came together as a club, as a fanbase, on Saturday. The moaning about popcorn, tourists and seating was forgotten for 90minutes

We had bigger fish to fry. We needed the show the players we were with them, and they needed to respond.

Both obliged and what a way to show Monsiuer Payet what he’s missing.

We don’t want him back, and the players responded to his actions by proving we don’t NEED him back to survive in this league.

For the first time this season, we were a claret and blue army, from  pitch to top tier, and we all had a common goal with no agenda to slate the board, stadium or players.

Our differences were put to one side as this game was too important to use a point scoring exercise.

For the first time (in the league anyway) we got our Hammers back, and appeared to show a bit of what we had about us last year.

Let’s hope that confidence is carried through to the Boro game, because the players seemed to play with a new found confidence and freedom without the distractions of he who must not be named.

Long may it continue ! COYI!!