Manuel Pellegrini was justifiably pleased with a point from a very difficult night!
Quite apart from meeting a Villa team desperate for points after a poor start and seeing the team lost Artur Masuaku in a very debatable decision, he felt the team gave him everything.
There were decent performances all over the pitch but quite rightly the manager concentrated on the team effort which saw the lads clinch another clean sheet and a valuable point.
Villa were very lively indeed at times but defensively we were at our best and may even have looked a better proposition when we went down to ten men.
It was a game that could easily have been lost but there’s a steel and determination not to mention self belief about these Hammers as they go bout their business.
Maybe there was not the class and quality of the Norwich performance but for true grit this one would take some beating.
Speaking at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2019/september/16-september/pellegrini-we-kept-trying-win-game the manager said: “I think that we gave a good performance, first because we came here and from the first minute of the game until the last minute we tried to win,” he said.
“After that, with ten men, we continued trying to have the ball, and trying to have the opportunity to win the game. We didn’t just defend so I’m very happy with a lot of things tonight.
“I don’t know if we played better with ten men, but the important thing was that it didn’t seem we had ten players.
“We worked very well in defending, we had the personality to come here and try to win from the first minute.
“We couldn’t do that, but with ten men it’s a good result.”
