Head Coach Graham Potter believes the character, spirit and togetherness his West Ham United team showed thoroughly warranted the Irons’ 3-0 Premier League win at Nottingham Forest.
The Hammers headed to the City Ground on Sunday without a point to show for their efforts from their opening two top-flight matches but responded by producing a near-perfect away performance to chop down the Tricky Trees.
Indeed, the victory achieved through three goals in the final six minutes of the second half could have been even more emphatic, so strongly did Potter’s team build their foundations and ultimately finish the game.
Captain Jarrod Bowen netted the first on 84 minutes from returning substitute Crysencio Summerville’s pass. Two minutes later the Dutch winger won a penalty, which was converted by Lucas Paquetá, then Callum Wilson completed the rout by heading in El Hadji Malick Diouf’s inch-perfect left-wing cross.
In addition to Summerville’s superb return, there was also Wilson’s first goal for the Club, Mateus Fernandes making an eye-catching debut and Mads Hermansen and his defence keeping a first clean sheet of the season.
And Potter was righly proud after seeing his players respond to his tactics, formation change to 4-5-1 and instruction to give everything to the letter.
Football is a lot like life. It’s often challenging, often unfair, often fair. Just when you think you’re on your knees, you get something and you have to keep going. That’s the life we’re in.
I’m delighted for the players, delighted for the team. They showed the quality they have, they showed the togetherness and the connection that they’ve had. That, of course, comes under doubt when people lose trust and confidence because the results haven’t been what we wanted.
But always the team have been fighting for each other and I’m really proud of them for that.
It was a near-perfect away performance.
The goals that we conceded [in our three previous games this season] have been incredibly soft.
We’ve owned up to that and we’ve recognised that it’s hard when you concede goals in that manner to think about anything positive, and to think about how tactically you can set up.
The first goal at Sunderland was nothing to do with the new tactics, nor was the second, nor was the third, nor was the first against Chelsea, etcetera.
So you have to show and prove that you’re together, that you’re connected, that you have an understanding of what you’re doing defensively and I think the players did that today. I can’t remember Forest having too many chances, if at all.
I thought we always carried a threat, so the game wasn’t high-quality but I think that was down to our organisation and our defensive solidity and then it was great for the subs to come on and impact the game and to score three goals away from home is just brilliant for us.
The goals we scored were how we’d hoped we could score.
Even the first half, the chance we get [that saw Sels save from Paquetá] is a ball from Malick down the side from Mateus and their relationship will improve and improve. That’s something we talked about. We didn’t do it quite as much as we’d have liked but I think there were signs there.
As I said, the performances probably haven’t been as bad as it looks like, but the results are so affected by the goals and obviously when you concede the goals that we have, it’s damaging. So today was really pleasing. The players executed really well and they showed their quality and they showed how much they care and how much together they are.
Football is about celebrating together, as it’s been hard for the supporters.
They come and they’re disappointed and understandably they support us. It’s a huge commitment and it’s a rollercoaster and everyone’s emotional, especially when the results aren’t what you’d like. In that moment, it’s so difficult to stick together. It’s so difficult to be a team and be a club.
So, it’s nice that you get moments like today, memories and games that they can go back down their road and be happy with their team.
This is the first brick in the wall of our Premier League season.
The world we’re in, things change quickly but, for us, we didn’t doubt the fight in the team, we didn’t doubt the spirit in the team, we didn’t doubt the quality in the team.
But when results are like they are, people are looking for things and reasons and you can get very simplistic sometimes.
The players deserve the night tonight, they deserve the win, they deserve the performance because of how they’ve acted and I’m really proud of them for that.
