West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini has stressed the importance of getting some consistency after his side beat Newcastle United 3-0 away from home.
The Hammers started brightly and looked the more threatening team with Javier Hernandez and Marko Arnautovic combining well up front. The former Manchester United man managed to give the away side an early lead when Robert Snodgrass swung in a cross from the left and it found Hernandez, who swept in to score.
Newcastle struggled to muster up clear-cut opportunities and Ayoze Perez’s header straight at Lukasz Fabianski midway through the first half was their first real chance.
Arnautovic missed a big chance to double the lead for West Ham a few minutes later. Felipe Anderson’s pass caught the Newcastle defence by surprise and found the Austrian. However, the forward tried to take the ball wide of the goalkeeper but went too far. It allowed the defenders to get back and clear the danger.
Perez came close to equalising for Newcastle but he couldn’t keep his header on target in the 27th minute after Matt Ritchie found him inside the box. West Ham went into the break with a narrow 1-0 advantage.
Both sides missed golden opportunities to score early in the second half. West Ham made a hash of more chances later but eventually found the second goal. Hernandez latched onto Arnautovic’s header to finish past Martin Dubravka.
Anderson and Issa Diop missed more chances later to put the game to bed. But the Brazilian did score West Ham’s third in stoppage time to round off a win and three points for the Hammers.
Pellegrini is pleased with the performance and was particularly happy at not conceding a goal as he feels keeping a clean sheet helped his side to play a more adventurous game.
He told the BBC: "Really satisfied because the team played a very good game.
"We scored three and create four or five clear chances.
"We kept a clean sheet which we haven't done very often this season. They didn't create many chances.
"If you keep a clean sheet you can play differently. We work hard during the week and today we played in the way we need if we don't want to concede goals.”
The West Ham boss is delighted to get Hernandez back in the team and admits that a post-World Cup illness meant that the Mexican was not fully fit to start games until recently.
He is pleased to see Anderson continuing to have an impact on the game and believes he is only going to improve as he gets the hang of the Premier League.
"We arrive with the World Cup and Javier was five weeks ill. It is not easy to recover his best moment but he is a scorer.
"When I start with him today because before that he could not play a complete game. I am happy for him.
"Felipe played a very good game also.
"He scored one and had a lot of important passes. He is more used to the Premier League and is improving every game.”
Pellegrini doesn’t want his West Ham side to feel too satisfied with the performance and wants them to show more consistency as getting an occasional win must not be enough for them.
"The worst mistake is to think the future is regular for us. We need to play the next game in the same way as today. An important three points but it is not enough.
“We need to think to the next game and three more."
