The Pellegrini verdict

Manuel Pellegrini was a happy and relieved man following a victory which saw the Hammers move away from the danger zone and into 13th place.

He and his team had given the critics a perfect response after a week long barrage but it’s only a start and he knows that level of performance is needed week in week out of we are to become a team seriously challenging towards the top of the league.

As things stand that was a one off performance and given what’s gone before we have every reason to ask why we haven’t seen that  level of commitment and determination before.

There will also be big questions asked should we return to the sloppy performances we have seen in the past when you see what happened at the Bridge today.

There are one or two reasons of course and the biggest may be Michail Antonio who represents what we expect from the rest of the team.

Bit for now it’s probably best to feel relief and delight in equal part but this can only be the start and the manager knows it.

Speaking at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2019/november/30-november/pellegrini-we-were-concentrated-throughout-and-its-really he said: “I think it was a really important win. We know the results recently are not what we expected of this team, but football is like that.

You must understand that you must be solid and consistent in the Premier League through the whole game. I think that was the major change.

“That allowed us to keep a clean sheet and beat a team like Chelsea who are in a good moment.

“I think the players are convinced in what we are doing. It’s difficult when you aren’t getting the results you expect to continue working in the same way, but we didn’t concede easy goals [today].

“When you concede goals that you can do better with of course it’s very difficult to win. Today we were concentrated all over and that showed in our performance.”