Manuel Pellegrini – as ever – is refusing to over-react to the ‘blip’ that has hit the Hammers, nor is he fazed by the prospect of taking on Liverpool on Monday evening.
As ever, there are no injury excuses although he believes the transfer speculation of January – presumably surrounding Marko Arnautovic in particular – helped nothing but he won’t go hunting for excuses in any circumstances.
Instead, he has been making it quite clear to players and fans that at this level of the game anything is possible regardless of where a team’s form appears to be and that Liverpool are just another team to be beaten.
It’s a refreshing approach designed to take out the anxiety which the squad may be feeling from whatever factors have been affecting them over recent times.
The message quite simply is “bring on Liverpool.” We are ready and won’t be going into the game with any other attitude than winning on our mind.
Speaking at his pre-match presser he said: “I don’t know if they are nervous or not, but I think we can beat Liverpool on Monday night because every team in the Premier League can beat another one, look at Newcastle beating Manchester City.
I remember the last race I had with Liverpool for the title in 2014, City were six points behind them but with three games in hand, so we had a lot of pressure and won the title.
I repeat, we want to beat Liveprool. If we want to beat Liverpool we need to play a good game, defend well, as they have top players and we need to play with a high pace as we have done against a lot of teams at home so we have all the chances to do it again.
After we beat Arsenal, we must improve if we want to continue being a competitive team. I see the players, they are mindful again of our project and I think we will improve.
Football changes in every game, there are lots of reasons why you win or lose a game. We lost the first four games and if you saw the picture in that moment, we then played three very difficult games and won two of them and drew one.
Two or three balls can change the game at any one moment so the only way to do it is to be concentrated in what we are doing.”
In his dreams ! As he says, “in order to beat Liverpool, we have to defend well”. Are we capable of doing that ? We’ll see on Monday. I hope his dreams come true!
Whatever happened to Gary Medel the bulldog chappy. I was convinced he was the signing they would make after it all went quiet on him. I thought they were keeping it well under wraps, but it never happened afterall.
Boss explains in the piece Clive
A few people have suggested there is not much to play for now. I disagree, although It depends what you want I guess. I would still be happy with top ten & see 50 points as the best we can expect. If we have our PL place nailed down by the start of March rather than the start of May I would see that as progress. But I would not be surprised if in 3 months some of us are left wondering if we are much better off than at the end of 2017/18. If so, supporters will be looking for another big summer spending spree by the Daves.
Hope I’m wrong but I can’t see that happening one bit..for a start to do that every single player has to run there self in to the ground and from what I’ve seen lately that won’t happen..
Sorry but with Ogbonna and Masuaku in defence even an optimist like me finds it very unlikely.If Balbuena and Cresswell plus Lanzini were back then just maybe .
I am more surprised by the fact that Masuaku was not moved on than by the lack of incoming players. OK Ok I know the cheap answer! But surely a Championship club or an overseas one would have him. He is not the worst we have had by a long shot-just not a PL defender .