McAvennie Exclusive: Coufal reaction to West Ham loss v Man City said a lot
We’re delighted to welcome former West Ham United striker Frank McAvennie as our exclusive columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at the London Stadium…
Vladimir Coufal’s reaction to West Ham losing to Manchester City last week said a lot about the togetherness of the squad, according to Frank McAvennie.
Ruben Dias and John Stones scored either side of Michail Antonio’s goal to earn Pep Guardiola’s men a 2-1 win at the Etihad, consigning West Ham to just their second defeat in their last 12 Premier League matches.
The Hammers will drop out of the top four on Thursday night no matter what the outcome is in Liverpool versus Chelsea at Anfield.
But McAvennie is thrilled by the harmony he’s seeing among David Moyes’ players at the moemnt.
“It said a lot,” McAvennie told West Ham Zone when talking about Coufal’s reaction to the defeat.
“West Ham have this great team spirit at the moment – you can see it everywhere.
“When you have players there like [Marko] Arnautovic, the team wasn’t together. Something was just missing. It was the same when [Sebastien] Haller was there, something was missing.
“Now, they’re all smiling. Antonio’s as mad as a brush, he’s good fun. There’s just a great team harmony there now.
“When you’ve got players like that you want to go to training every day. It’s the making of a great team.”
West Ham have a great bunch of players.
You can see on social media how the likes of Antonio, Declan Rice and Jesse Lingard can light up a dressing room with their personalities.
At the end of the day, football is a sport that we grew up loving to play.
When you watch the likes of Antonio, Rice, Lingard and other West Ham players, it’s like they’re still having a kick-about with their mates as kids.
It’s something you love to see and while it was disappointing to lose to Man City, there were so many positives to take away from that performance.
Guardiola’s side has been the best in Europe this season and are very likely to win the Champions League.
There’s no shame in losing 2-1 away to them.
In other West Ham news, we’ve looked at whether Michail Antonio can be considered a Hammers legend.