West Ham manager Julen Lopetegui was delighted to secure his first home win of the Premier League season.
It may have taken a while, but Julen Lopetegui has finally got the players playing how he wants for a full 90 minutes. Despite conceding an equaliser just minutes after their earliest goal in Premier League history, West Ham absolutely demolished Ipswich.
If it wasn’t for a couple of great saves and goal line clearances, the Hammers could have easily have scored more. However, a 4-1 win will more than suffice, any Lopetegui was delighted with the mentality that his side displayed after conceding that early equaliser. “I’m happy for the fans and the players too because they deserve this,” he told the official site. “It was a hard match, as all the matches in the Premier League are, but we did very well.”
“We started very well, but suffered a very early equalising goal. I think after that we had a very good mentality, we kept strong and we deserved to score before we did get the second. In the last chance of the half we did score, and we kept going in the second half. We kept looking for goals and in the end we achieved a good victory.”
While obviously the attackers will get most the praise after scoring 4, the gaffer was keen to highlight the defence, with him singling Jean-Clair Todibo out in particular as the standout. “I would like to highlight the defensive work we did, too. Against this kind of team, the key thing is that we defend very well and we don’t allow them to play us in their style. I think that was important.”
“Jean-Clair Todibo did well and we are happy for him. There is good competition between him, Max [Kilman] and Dinos [Mavropanos]. They are always ready and push one another on, so this is good.”
“It was important to go into the international break with this victory and a good feeling. We have the break, but we are going to start thinking about the next matches very quickly for sure.”