Julen Lopetegui hailed his team’s character after West Ham United maintained their unbeaten away record in the Premier League with a hard fought 1-1 draw at Brentford.
The Hammers fell behind to Bryan Mbeumo’s volley inside 40 seconds and, having conceded eight goals in defeats by Chelsea and Liverpool in recent days, could easily have folded at Gtech Community Stadium.
Instead, Lopetegui’s players stuck to their task, defended resolutely, improved their attacking play and were rewarded when Tomáš Souček swept home an equaliser nine minutes into the second half.
By then, the Head Coach had made two half-time substitutions, bringing on Carlos Soler and Dinos Mavropanos – in an unaccustomed right-back role – for Mohammed Kudus and Emerson. The Spaniard rolled the dice twice more with 15 minutes to play, throwing on Danny Ings and Crysencio Summerville, but ultimately West Ham had to settle for a point.
Regardless, Lopetegui was justifiably proud of his team’s performance at the end of a testing week, particularly after they fell behind so early on, and hopes the Hammers will now take their resilient away form back to London Stadium, where they host Ipswich Town in the final game before the October international break next Saturday…
We have had three matches away and haven’t lost, showing a big character in the very difficult moments against a very good team in Brentford.
This is the first match at home that they didn’t win, so I think that we have to highlight above all the reaction of the team after a very bad start. It was a nightmare to start losing in the first minute.
We knew that [they would start fast] as we showed them images of the two goals that they had scored [in the first minute against Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur in their previous two matches], but sometimes, despite you doing that, it can happen and it was a bad surprise for us.
But after we were into the match, we balanced the match in the first half and in the second half, in my opinion, we were better than them. We deserved to win, but we drew as we had a lot of situations to do better in the last pass, in the last cross, when we had a very clear situation.
We were able to change the match against a very good team at home, so we have to highlight this, to keep the good, positive things. We are with one win very close with a lot of teams, a lot of big teams, so I think that I have tried to highlight the positive things and to highlight the positive reaction in the second half when we worked as a team, and it is very important for us.
We talked about this (starting the second half on the front foot) and we showed this character and this personality.
I was thinking ‘what do we have to do to score?’ because we had a lot of situations. Fortunately, we drew, but I was thinking to win the match and we made the changes thinking this, but it's one point.
I repeat, I think that there was one good reaction and one good behaviour in the second half. I think that's the first step to build good things.
I think that the supporters knew the difficulties to play here, and they knew the difficulties to suffer [conceding] one goal in the first minute.
It's not easy for any team and that's why I think that we feel their support in all the match and I’m happy for them, despite [that] we wanted the three points [instead of one], but I prefer to keep the good things and to look forward for the next challenge against Ipswich.
Tomáš scored his goal and he was, as always, working for the team.
I think that we need this kind of behaviour in the big matches, because this is Premier League.
In the Premier League you have to play always with eleven players fighting for the team, having this kind of a high work-rate.
I am happy for him because you need this kind of player to show the way.
I am looking forward for the next big challenge against Ipswich.
We have to work well all the week looking forward and thinking to be able to win this match.
