Manuel Lanzini is feeling strong and ready to build on an impressive 2021/22 campaign as West Ham United begin our preparations for the season ahead.
The 29-year-old featured in 45 games in all competitions last term – the most of his seven seasons as a Hammer – as he played a key role in the team’s strong performances at home and abroad.
Lanzini enjoyed his break back home in Argentina, but returned to Rush Green at the weekend refreshed and fully focused on maintaining his progress and helping his team better their achievements from the year before.
As David Moyes got the squad down to work on their pre-season camp in St Andrews, Lanzini admitted he was ready to return.
“I had a very good holiday with my family and friends,” he said, “You need to relax – your mind, you body, everything to get to 100 per cent to work hard for the pre-season.
“But now it’s good to be back, because it’s great to have a holiday but part of you misses this environment. You miss the training, being around the lads, so I’m happy to be back.”
Moyes has brought his team back to the east coast of Scotland for the third consecutive pre-season and Lanzini is delighted to be on familiar turf for the first week of the preparations.
With pristine pitches to work on, as well as gym facilities and the famous West Sands beach on hand for morning runs, the No10 says the environment offers everything the team needs.
“We enjoy coming here,” he confirmed. “It’s a good place, the training is good because you have everything here. The weather is good too because it doesn’t get too hot.
“It was a hard day on Tuesday, but this is pre-season, every day needs to be hard because if your goal is to be ready for the season, now you need to prepare for what is coming.
“I’m feeling strong and last season, personally, was really good because I played a lot of games. Now I’m focused on staying at that level to play that number of games again and help the team and the Club in the season ahead.”
And with the prospect of another European campaign awaiting in the UEFA Europa Conference League, Lanzini says the team have all the motivation they need to go one better from their exploits across all competitions last year.
He added: “Of course our experiences from last season motivate us to improve further this year. It’s important for the Club to have European competition and we want to do well in that again.
“I think it’s going to be a hard season because of the World Cup in the middle, but that’s what this time of year is a about – preparing ourselves for that challenge and making sure we’re ready.”
