Manuel Pellegrini is watching real intensity enter his squad and was delighted they didn’t under-estimate last night’s opposition in an epic 8-0 win at the London Stadium.
That’s the highest win so far in their ‘new’ home and is likely to stand for a very long time. It came via some serious professionalism in addressing the job at hand.
And the boss said afterwards: “We played with intensity and we tried to continue playing in the same way
“Against a lower league team you don’t play with the same pace, and you think you can walk to victory but we were very professional.
“I talked to the players before the game, and said that it’s up to us to make the difference. You have to play with intensity and you can’t underestimate your rival and for me the best thing we did is that we didn’t underestimate them.”
This was West Ham’s record win at London Stadium, with Robert Snodgrass, Lucas Perez, Ryan Fredericks all scoring their first goals for the club in addition to Diangana. Michail Antonio and Angelo Ogbonna completed the rout.
Pellegrini will hope for another home draw when the fourth-round balls come out of the hat on Saturday evening, but before that the Hammers host Manchester United in the Premier League eager to build on their recent run of improved form.
I was listening to the game yesterday, and was really expecting the Irons to come out for the second half in a low energy, low pressure look since they had a comfortable lead. I was pleasantly surprised to see them keep the pressure on. They will need to show that level of effort on Saturday against Man U.
We now need to start performing like that in league games, can any imagine if we started beating the teams at the bottom by 3 or more goals ? What kind of effect would that have on our opposition and our own fans ?