West Ham picked up a vital win against Crystal Palace to truly kickstart their Premier League season as well as the Julen Lopetegui era.

After a disappointing performance against Aston Villa, it was always vital that West Ham bounced back against Crystal Palace, especially with the run of fixtures they’ve got coming up – thankfully they delivered.

When an unchanged starting XI was announced a lot of fans were understandably irritated, it just didn’t make sense to play the same team that had so many faults the week prior. In a roundabout way you could argue that they were right given how the match played out.

Although the first-half ended 0-0, it was far from boring with both sides having some good chances but, from a West Ham perspective, it was infuriating as those same weaknesses (particularly those that Vladimir Coufal playing caused) were clearly not solved. Palace did come close to scoring a couple of times, particularly from a sensational Eze strike which hit the woodwork, but for the Hammers it was much of the same as they had seen against Villa.

However, the second-half was much improved. Around the hour mark, Lopetegui brought on both Niclas Fullkurg and Aaron Wan-Bissaka and this completely swung the momentum of the game. The latter not only made the defence much less vulnerable (granted the central defenders had been doing a great job anyway) but he was also pivotal in the first goal. A brilliant run down the wing with a great through ball to Bowen led to a ball in the box which, thanks to the natural striker positioning of Fullkrug, ended up deflecting out to Tomas Soucek who struck the ball into the back of the net in the 67th minute.

Just 5 minutes later, we saw a brilliant run from another one of our new signings, this time Max Kilman, who picked up the ball on the edge of his own box, beating two players to get into the Eagle’s half before playing a pinpoint through ball to Bowen who cut in on his left, as he does so well, rifling it in to where the right hand side and back netting meet.

The Irons also had a chance to extend their lead further through Niclas Fullkrug late on, but the angle proved too tight.

A first away game, a first win, and a first clean sheet in the Julen Lopetegui era. Although there’s still work to be done, that second-half performance gave us a taste of what we can expect to see from our Irons this season. The new signings impressed massively today, and you can already see how they not only are improvements in personnel but also allow those around them to play to their full potential.

As usual, Bowen and Kudus were brilliant but Mavropanos also deserves a special mention. He has been superb in the opening two games and you would never guess that he was part of a defence which conceded 74 goals last season. An overall solid 90 minutes of football from the East Londoners, if they keep improving and adapting to the new gaffer’s system then this campaign could be a very special one indeed.