EXTRA TIME

Unbelievable West Ham

October 31, 2021 at 9:46 pm Leave a comment

West Ham continued their fine start to the season – never before have they collected 20 points from their opening ten Premier League fixtures – and extended their unbeaten away league run with a rampant 4-1 at Aston Villa. BBC said that the Hammers “pushed their top-four credentials” and according to The Telegraph the “Hammers are real deal”. They are now equal on points with Manchester City and three points ahead of Manchester United.

After the game Declan Rice who put in a man of the match performance and scored West Ham’s second, paid tribute to the team’s togetherness, which continues to drive them on as they strive to hit yet greater heights than they have already scaled:

“It’s a special group at the minute, a special environment. We wake up looking forward to training. Every game, we’ve been in it until the end. It’s a special place to play and as you can see by our faces we’re over the moon.

“We are joint third,” the West Ham skipper said. “The big question people asked before the season was whether we could do it again and could we get used to playing in Europe and the Premier League. We’ve found out we can. But there are still a lot more games to go. This is the level, the standard. We can’t drop if we want to be a big team.”

For David Moyes, this was his 999th game as a manager, and his fourth successive win in this stadium. His side really have been excellent on three fronts this term, with a superb Premier League start, reaching the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup and taking charge of their Europa League group with three straight wins.

And there is also a positivity and attacking impetus attached to his side that has perhaps not always been present in his previous jobs elsewhere. At times, Moyes’ team played some wonderful, free-flowing attacking football led by their effervescent captain Declan Rice.

The Premier League table after ten games is unbelievable and reason for happiness:

To put West Ham’s outstanding start to the season in context, they have 20 points from 10 matches and, converting three points for a win, only in 1975-76 have they earned more points at this stage of a top-flight campaign (21).

They are also now unbeaten in eight away league games and only once, in 1985 under John Lyall, have they bettered that run. These feel like heady times for the club. “I don’t want West Ham to become that flaky, inconsistent team a lot of people remember them as,” Moyes said when he started his second spell at the club. But did anyone foresee how far his Hammers can go?

It’s a great time to be West Ham!

Next games: KRC Genk (A), Liverpool (H, Sunday). Manchester City will play ManUtd away on Saturday.

Extended highlights from Aston Villa 1 West Ham 4:
https://www.whufc.com

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