WHZ View: Three things we learned about West Ham in win v Crystal Palace
West Ham moved into the Champions League places on Tuesday evening as they continued their perfect start to 2021 with a 3-2 victory over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.
Tomas Soucek took his tally to seven for the season after finding the net twice, before Craig Dawson headed in his first Premier League goal to earn the Irons all three points.
The win made it six out of six in all competitions this calendar year – yes, you read that correctly. West Ham Zone has picked out three things to take away from Tuesday’s performance.
- We must be contenders for Europe?
Our best-ever finish to a Premier League season is fifth in 1999.
Without getting ahead of ourselves, surely Moyes will be wanting to push for European football come the end of the season?
As it stands, we’re fourth in the table although some of the sides below us do have games in hand. But is a top-seven finish completely out of the question?
Maybe this will be something to review after hosting Liverpool this Sunday.
2. Antonio is as hungry as ever
It’s fair to say that Michail Antonio didn’t have his best night in front of goal on Tuesday.
The Englishman should have had a hattrick, hitting the post twice and missing another tap in during the second half. You could clearly hear his frustration having missed the target.
Our number 30 was still as menacing as ever and got a clever assist for Soucek’s equaliser early on. More goals will come for him this season, as he looks to become our record goal-scorer in the Premier League.
3. Fornals is having a much better season
The Spaniard has been the subject of mixed reviews during his time in East London. He’s featured in 19 of our 20 Premier League fixtures this season and is clearly someone that Moyes trusts.
Fornals had an excellent performance against Palace, completing the game with an 86% passing accuracy and 75% of dribbles successful [Wyscout]. He also made six recoveries and seven interceptions, really leading from the front as Moyes encouraged his players to press high.
It’s good to see him playing with confidence having struggled to adapt to the pace of the league at first.
In other West Ham news, Moyes is to have final say on transfer target Hee-Chan.