Felipe Anderson hailed West Ham United’s team spirit after Saturday’s ‘incredible’ 4-3 Premier League victory over Huddersfield Town.
Manuel Pellegrini’s side’s chances of securing a third straight home win looked remote when Karlan Grant fired the Terriers into a 3-1 lead midway through the second half.
But, thanks to three headers inside the final 15 minutes – one from Angelo Ogbonna and two from Chicharito – the Irons roared back to claim all three points amid unbelievable, euphoric scenes.
“It was an incredible game, at least when we came back and got the victory,” the No8 told whufc.com. “Unfortunately, they managed to get an important advantage but we kept on believing that we had the quality to overturn the deficit and it was a good lesson to realise that nothing ever is lost and we need to keep on working because we have the quality to come from behind when the days are not good.”
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Much earlier, West Ham went ahead through Mark Noble’s penalty, but allowed Huddersfield to strike back almost immediately thought Juninho Bacuna’s header before Grant gave the Premier League’s bottom club a half-time lead.
When the former Charlton forward put Huddersfield two goals clear, many teams would have given up the ghost, but not the Hammers, inspired by experienced substitutes Chicharito and Samir Nasri.
“We started well the game, we were pressing them and got the lead but then we slowed down our rhythm and they equalised and then scored again but we have experienced players and we talked, saying that we needed to keep on pressing them, that we were at home and we managed to get the result,” the Brazil winger continued.
“It’s never good to have a two-goal deficit, it’s always a problem to recover from that but today we showed our character and intelligence to come back at home.”
After Nasri had set up Chicharito for the equaliser seven minutes from time, it was Felipe Anderson who provided the inch-perfect cross for the Mexico star to glance past Jonas Lossl and send the Claret and Blue Army wild.
“I’m very happy for (Chicharito) because he started on the bench and entered the pitch wanting to help. The match was very complicated and he knew that with his movements he could cause them problems and happily it worked, and we’re very happy for him.
“We train these set pieces as well. We had tried everything and the ball wasn’t going in, so we had to try something different and I’m very happy to send the perfect pass for him.
“Chicharito has a lot of merit because he knew that the ‘keeper was running out and he flicked the ball with his head [and scored the winner].”