David Moyes was delighted with how his West Ham United side showed determination and resolve in carving out a late, thrilling 3-2 victory at home to Chelsea.
Andriy Yarmolenko’s powerful finish on the counter-attack on 89 minutes secured a much-needed and hard-fought win against Frank Lampard Blues, putting the icing on the cake of a highly entertaining contest in east London.
Having seen a finish ruled out for offside, before Willian opened the scoring for Chelsea from the penalty spot, Tomas Soucek netted his first West Ham goal late in the first half, before Michail Antonio finished a brilliant team move to put the Irons in front.
Willian’s second – from a free-kick – seemed to have ensured honours were even at the final whistle, substitute Yarmolenko struck on the counter to secure a massive win.
We were up against it at that time against Chelsea, at 2-2, but the players stuck at it and got a good result.
David Moyes
Manager Moyes was happy with how his players kept their heads up and stuck at the gameplan in securing the three points.
“We’ve all been looking at the results, of course we are, but the biggest thing for me was that I didn’t think we’d been as bad as our results had suggested,” Moyes said. “We lost 2-0 in both games and I said that I thought that the teams we played had played well, and we had made mistakes and missed a couple of chances.
“We did say to the players that we had to change our luck, and we thought the luck could change and it maybe went our way tonight a little bit. We pushed hard, and we did a lot of good things. The players deserve a massive amount of credit.
“Tonight, we took most of our chances. Chelsea, with the team they have, made a number of chances as well. We were up against it at that time against Chelsea, at 2-2, but the players stuck at it and got a good result.”
Having seen his substitute Yarmolenko net the winning goal, while Antonio’s efforts up front were more than worthy of a goal, Moyes was content with how the two attacking players performed in Wednesday’s victory.
He continued: “I know that Yarmo can score! He does it in training every single day so we know he’s capable of that. Jarrod had done his part in making goals earlier, so I felt the time was right to make the change there.
“Michail can change at different times but to play on his own and do what we ask him to do is a mammoth job. We’ve not got Seb Haller at the moment, but I think it would have been hard to play two up top against Chelsea anyway. I think even the really good teams find that hard.
“I just think we’ve done a good job and we were well organised, which we had to be. Thankfully we’ve got the three points.”
With the midweek win putting West Ham outside the drop zone on 30 points, Moyes is targeting a further ten points from his side’s remaining six matches in order to be absolutely sure of the Hammers’ status in the Premier League.
He added: “It gets us to 30 points and the next target has to start with a four. If we can get to 40 points, then I’m sure we will be safe in the Premier League. We’ve still got to aim to get to that points tally and obviously that means winning another three games.”
