Espirito Santo hails West Ham fans after first home win | OneFootball

Nuno Espirito Santo was full of praise for the West Ham fans after his side earned their first home win of the season against Newcastle.

The Portuguese manager’s side went 1-0 down early on, but a goal from Lucas Paqueta, an own goal from Sven Botman and a late strike to seal it from Tomas Soucek meant West Ham came away with all three points.

The fans at the London stadium were yet to see a home win before today and Espirito Santo recognised how important they were in getting behind the team.

“I think we mentioned in the press conference,” he said. “Our idea is to try and give something to our fans and today we did give them a small thing and the way they gave us back was huge.

“In the end, the noise in the London Stadium was amazing, so we cannot thank them enough. Let’s try against Burnley to give them a little bit more so they can make more noise as we try to transform the London Stadium into a very hard place for our opponents.”

I think the fans saw something in the team today and this is what we want. This is how we should look at the situation.

“How can we as a team show our fans that we want to fight, we want to change the situation, we want to make things tough for our opponents, we want to change our game, we want to improve our game. The fans, I cannot thank them enough.”

West Ham were on top for vast periods of the first half, but after the break, they did have to weather a storm from Newcastle. Espirito Santo praised his side’s resilience.

“Second half, we were against the ropes,” he explained. “But we were resilient enough to recognise that off the ball, it was difficult but not really trouble. 

“So there was no disorganisation because the team didn’t get desperate. So the way we did it, it’s important for us to realise that off the ball we have to work very, very hard.”