WHZ View: On this day 2019 – Looking back at West Ham 4-3 Huddersfield
On this day in 2019, West Ham defeated Huddersfield Town in a seven-goal-thriller in front of 59,931 spectators at the London Stadium.
The Hammers scored three times in the last 15 minutes of the game to rescue a victory. Headed goals from Angelo Ogbonna and Javier Hernandez (x2) spared our blushes and kept the Terriers rooted to the bottom of the table.
The visitors had gone into a 3-1 lead after 65 minutes through a pearler from Harlan Grant. Half the stadium cleared out, and the atmosphere turned toxic. Luckily we were able to dig in and grind out a win, but for large periods of the match it seemed we’d lose to a side with one away win all season.
Times have changed
We remember leaving the London Stadium that afternoon feeling really frustrated. As West Ham fans, we don’t ask for much. A bit of effort, work rate, and a touch of quality to get us off our seats. For 75 minutes of this game, we didn’t see any of that, and despite winning 4-3 it was a really alarming performance.
Considering we were sitting inside the top ten, we should never be conceding three goals at home to such a poor team. The overall display from Pellegrini’s men was worrying, it was around this time he was beginning to lost grip on the squad and the fans began to lose faith in him.
It’s another one of those matches that just shows how far we’ve come. Six of the starting XI from this match started on Sunday against Manchester United. Moyes has found the perfect balance between embedding new talent whilst not disturbing the spring of the team.
Two of those now gone are Marko Arnautovic and Felipe Anderson. The duo were brought to the club for big money, but at separate times both had their attitude called into question. Both are now playing abroad.
Despite fielding a similar group of players, Moyes’ side is unrecognisable from this. Looking back on afternoons such as these are important for the club as it shows what a turnaround its been in such a short space of time. Next up we have Arsenal, and nothing less than three points can be seen as successful. Something we probably wouldn’t be saying two years ago.
In other West Ham news, editor James Wood discusses transfer targets with our Fans in the Fan Q&A.