David Moyes hailed his West Ham United team for their ‘perfect’ response to losing to Liverpool by winning 3-1 at Aston Villa on Wednesday evening.
Having seen their six-game Premier League unbeaten run ended by the champions at London Stadium on Sunday, the Hammers bounced back immediately with an eye-catching display at Villa Park.
Debutant Jesse Lingard stole the headlines with two well-taken goals, while Tomas Soucek made it eight Premier League goals for the season with an accurate, well-struck finish and Michail Antonio grabbed two assists, but it was yet another all-round team performance that secured a fifth away win of the 2020/21 campaign.
Ryan Fredericks and Vladimir Coufal personified that down the right flank, combining superbly to keep Villa captain Jack Grealish quiet for most of the night.
An eleventh victory overall means West Ham head to Craven Cottage fifth in the table, just two points behind Liverpool in fourth, and unsurprisingly the manager was pleased with his squad’s efforts.
That was the perfect way to bounce back.
We didn’t play well on Sunday and we knew that and we thought we should have played better, but if anybody questioned us, we certainly did tonight against a really good team in Aston Villa.
It keeps us moving along, so I’m really pleased.
As a manager, you’re going to get criticised if you get your tactics wrong, but I think we got it right tonight.
We felt as if we needed Ryan Fredericks with his speed and to give us something slightly different as we were up against a really good player in that area as well in Jack Grealish.
Between them, him and Vladimir Coufal did a very good job.
Tomas Soucek’s goal was a great finish.
He was a little bit unlucky with the one he had which spun over the bar near the end, but he’s been a brilliant signing for us.
With where we are and what we needed, he’s been brilliant for us in the year he’s been here and let’s hope he’s great for us for the next three or four years as well.
He’s still young, so he can get better, but I thought he played really well tonight.
It’s a great start for Jesse Lingard and a great start for us because the confidence it gives us seeing people come in and make a difference and help the team is huge.
People will be thinking ‘he can play for us and he’s ready to go into the team’ and to get two goals is great for Jesse.
You’ve got to remember he was an England international not so long ago. He’s still young enough to get back to that and I tell you what, he showed some qualities tonight.
I think people felt they could give him the ball and trust him with it, whether he was going to turn or play one-touch or make things happen.
We know he has a goal threat about him as well and he was capable of adding to the team.
We’re trying to keep ourselves hungry and energetic. We might not always play well, but we’ll have a team the supporters will always come and see running around and giving everything, so let’s hope that continues.
It’s never-ending at the moment.
It’s a really difficult period we’re in and we’ve got another game on Saturday at Fulham.
I’m sure we’d like to enjoy this performance and this result, but it’s back to work on Thursday morning and we have to go again.
