Julen Lopetegui was full of praise for the way his West Ham United side fought to a brilliant 2-0 win over Newcastle United under the St James’ Park lights.
The Hammers arrived on Tyneside searching for their second victory on their travels in 2024/25, and burst out of the blocks to take the lead through Tomáš Souček’s header in the tenth minute.
The hosts did their best to hustle and harry themselves back to level terms, but despite their threat throughout, West Ham stood up to every challenge and bravely battled in all areas of the pitch to retain their advantage.
And then, just eight minutes into the second half, summer signing Aaron Wan-Bissaka linked up brilliantly with captain Jarrod Bowen to fire in his first goal for the Club off the far post, to provide a cushion to the scoreline.
Rather than be overwhelmed by Newcastle pressure going into the late stages, the Irons continued to hold their own and impress by working tirelessly with and without the ball, until referee Craig Pawson brought proceedings to a close with the final whistle.
The 3,200 or so travelling supporters certainly enjoyed their evening, and there were plenty of smiles in the stands and on the pitch at the game’s conclusion, as three valuable points were confirmed.
The result leaves West Ham 14th in the table, but now just four points off the top six, and Lopetegui is clear that the standard has now been set, ahead of another mouth-watering clash up against title challengers Arsenal at London Stadium on Saturday.
I said congratulations to all of the players because they all put in very good work.
We had one identity today, and I think we did well with and without the ball. Above all we were a team, and we fought for each other, and that is what you need to compete on an occasion like today.
I think we showed lots of personality, and we did really well to overcome what is a tough occasion to come and play Newcastle at their own ground like this.
We tried to take advantage of the international break.
Even though we had quite a few players away, we still worked on a number of things, and it’s paid off today. The most important thing is that we’ve managed to come away with three points against a very good team.
We are happy, above all, for the fans.
They have all made the very long journey here from London, and unfortunately we haven’t been able to give them many days like this during this season.
So, we are happy for them, and we hope they had a good night. Hopefully we can give them many more days like this going forward.
It’s important we use this result and performance, and take it into our next match now.
It was important to win, but the way we played and fought as a team is what we can take the most going forward.
Always we try to improve, and we know we still have to improve, so we will go straight back to work and do everything we can to do well in the next match.
