Fabian Balbuena has backed Felipe Anderson to go on to score plenty more goals in Claret and Blue after the Brazilian's fourth of the season rescued a point for the Hammers at Huddersfield Town on Saturday.
The No8 started and finished the move which gave Manuel Pellegrini’s side their 74th minute equaliser at the John Smith’s Stadium, lashing into the top right hand corner of Jonas Lossl’s net after Marko Arnautovic, Chicharito and Michail Antonio all had efforts blocked in the box.
Balbuena was not surprised to see the ball fly into the net from Felipe Anderson’s boot and he was happy to head back home with a hard-fought draw.
“I think we did well in the second half and we were happy for Felipe to score,” he explained. “I think it’s a good point.
“It seemed like the ball didn’t want to go in the goal at that moment, because it was bouncing around, but we know Felipe has the technical ability to finish like that.
“He is in a good moment now and we hope he can keeping on scoring to help us win more games.
“I think it was a fair result because we created chances. Huddersfield created chances too and we played a good game [in the second half to come back].
“There was intensity to the game from the first minute, but they scored the first goal and we had to change our strategy because going behind early makes it difficult against a team like Huddersfield playing at home.”
After taking to Premier League life like a duck to water since his summer move from Corinthians, the 27-year-old Balbuena will now head off on international duty with Paraguay, and he is relishing the opportunity to add to his seven caps when Juan Carlos Osorio’s side take on South Africa in a friendly next week.
He added: “I’m happy for the national team to call me up. Now, we have a game against South Africa, with a new coach.
“There are lots of young, new players with the national team too so we need to create a good group to qualify for the next World Cup.”