Irons 4 Burnley 2
By Hugh Southon
That was the game of the season so far – quite magnificent and if you want heroes step forward £35 million Felipe Anderson and cost nothing Grady Diangana.
After the ups and downs of the season this looked like another as the Clarets twice came from behind to equalise goals from Arnie and the Brazilian before Felipe hit the post and scored another before Chicharito rounded things off two minutes into injury time.
In between times Anderson saw a beautiful chipped effort headed clear from under the bar and hit the post as he produced the type of performance we paid all that cash for in the summer.
(Photo by Arfa Griffiths/West Ham United via Getty Images)
As is always the West Ham way, we made hard work of it by twice letting troubled Burnley back into it but with the stadium rocking we finished in style to grab our second home win of the season and go three points ahead of Palace who travel to Chelsea tomorrow (Sunday)
But a special word for Dianga, an astonishing prospect who unlike so many academy players doesn’t pass his way forward but instead carries the ball, take on men and causes real problems.
His was a minimum eight out of ten performance with only the goals making Anderson the man of the match here at Cand H. His was the perfect answer to manager Pellegrini who had demanded far more from him after his lack lustre start.
Declan Rice got through a mountain of work in midfield, Zaba was immense but the two central defenders were surprisingly at fault for Wood’s goal which drew it back to 2-2.
Thankfully at the end it didn’t matter as we ensured that our supremacy throughout was rewarded with the three points we thoroughly deserved.
Joe Hart in the Burnley goal – who had been subject to the banter you might expect – was again in poor form, fumbling shots and looking uncertain.
That win will do wonders as we head for Huddersfield and comes on the back of a performance which will have reminded many of the days when the West Ham Way was understood by everybody; attacking football, slick passing and academy products looking the business.
COYI
So much for the pole in which Sodgrass (who had his usual headless chicken performance) was preferred to Anderson …( I voted for Anderson!)
So Anderson has had a couple of bad games but he is class & it showed today…Snodgrass was also responsible for there second goal !..
By the way Burnley are a bunch of dirty & I hope they and Hart go down! Tarkowski should have been sent off for the foul on Diangana just before Anderson’s second goal which was far worst than the foul by Noble last week….
Let’s hope so, didn’t go to match but listened to it, sounded like we battered them, despite that with 6 mins left we are 2-2 I think we have to be one of the unluckiest teams in football that it seems teams only need 1 or 2 chances to score a goal against us. Let’s hope this is just the start, Diangana seems to be improving every game and how great is it to have two really solid performers from the academy established in the first team !!! Would be interested to see how those not impressed by Anderson so far rate him ? Hopefully a turning point for him also COYI !!!
The game was going nowhere til Chico came on at 1-1 he caused chaos in the Burnley defence with his movement a movement that didn’t really exist til he came on! ( and I don’t like him but fairs fair )