The David David Moyes verdict
The David Moyes verdict was that he got exactly what he wanted from our front men today and delighted barely describes his feelings. The Hammers could hardly have got off to a better start to their hectic festive period with two wins at Euro and Premier League level. Now comes Liverpool away and the Carabao Cup. There is big reason to hope as we follow that with a visit from anchester United next weekend.
Moyes was thrilled with the interplay that led to goals from Kudus – to – and Jarrod Bowen where Paqueta was involved on each occasion. Such a pretty sight with none coming from the former corners and set pieces. These are players who clearly enjoying playing together and the manager is enjoying watching it.
Kudus struck in the first half with two fantastic finishes, before Bowen coolly slotted home in the second half. All three goals were provided by Paquetá passes.
The trio of goals meant three points on the board, leaving West Ham with just one loss in their last nine games and 20 wins from the last 32 played.
And afterwards the manager said: “It was a great first half performance. especially in the way we got after Wolves early. We’ve not often been able to do it after Thursday night games, which is something we’ve talked about a bit, and I thought we were more aggressive with everything we did in the first part of the game. It led to a couple of really good goals.
I can’t take the credit for the homework done by our analysts [that Kudus had been told to aim inside the near post when cutting inside and shooting].
We are always looking for things that might help us and we thought shooting at the near post might give us a chance. We got two really good shots of from Mo, and Jarrod’s was a really good finish as well. The forward boys today produced.
It’s great that the players are all flexible, willing to try different things, and we’re getting good wins.
Late on in the game, Jarrod scored his goal today off the right wing. We put Paquetá in at centre-forward and Mo in behind him, and we wanted to see if we could try something different. We’d lost a little bit of impetus in the game and Wolves played much better in the second half.
We have to keep knocking at the door. I genuinely think that we can get better.
I think we can get better defensively. I think we’re beginning to show that we’ve got an attacking outlet. We’re slightly different at the moment and we’re experiencing a bit of a changing of the guard in some places. But we’re getting goals from all areas.”