David Moyes was full of praise for his West Ham United team's work ethic as they battled their way to a second straight 1-0 victory at Sheffield United on Sunday.
The Hammers had to withstand a bright opening from the home side before gaining control of the contest and sealing the victory with a real moment of quality from the boot of Sebastien Haller.
Haller's 20-yard rocket flashed into the top right hand corner of the net early in the second half, and with the visitors defending with real grit and no little skill, that was enough.
The boss was delighted with the result, as he told West Ham TV at the final whistle...
We've had back-to-back wins, with successive clean sheets. We're into the top half and we're really picking up...
I really wish the West Ham supporters were here to see it because when they come back I think they’ll see a lot of improvement.
They’ll see players who have moved on and got better. The one thing there is about the team is that is has great energy and commitment. They’re all trying to do their job.
All we’ll try to do is keep building and getting better - we're not going to get carried away with what we’re doing, but let’s be fair, winning away is really important.
I think we can keep going and keep moving up the table.
Sheffield United started well be we showed our resilience again…
They’re very strong down their right hand side and they probably got three or four crosses in quite early on which we were aware of, but it was always going to be a game in which we’d have to suffer for bits of it because of how they play and their determination to pick up points.
We were aware of that and the players stuck to it. They did a really good job and when we needed to defend we sat back in, and when we needed to get away and have the ball [we did that too].
I think we had a really good period in the first half for 30 minutes when we had the ball, but maybe we couldn’t create the clear cut opportunities.
But overall I’m really pleased with them.
I'm delighted for Sebastien Haller...
That’s what we want from Seb and what everyone’s looking for, me included. He came back from international duty and I could sense in the two days we had back training that he had a spring in his step. His confidence seemed up and we’re really pleased with that.
He’s showing signs now, and like today’s goal, we want him to get more goals and to be more involved in the build up play and stronger in some situations.
But I have to say I couldn’t be more pleased for him because he’s stuck at it and be’s scored a really good goal today.
I'm delighted for the defenders too and especially Fabian Balbuena after his gruelling week...
I’m really pleased for Fabian Balbuena because he was a concern whether we should use him or not as he was in South America, he had the games for Paraguay and didn’t get back until 5pm on Thursday evening, and everyone is aware of the type of jet lag you’ll go through with that.
So great credit to him, it’s another clean sheet. We’re not going to do well enough if we don’t defend well enough, and we’ve started to pick up a few clean sheets, so long may that continue.