West Ham United thrashed Macclesfield 8-0 in the Carabao Cup, their biggest win for 35 years and it all fits Manuel Pellegrini’s career pattern.
When West Ham appointed Pellegrini this summer fans were excited by the prospect of his attacking style and ethos.
Four defeats from the Chilean’s opening four Premier League games left many doubting whether he could reach those heights with a club in transition like West Ham.
But a 3-1 win at Everton, a 0-0 draw against Chelsea which the Hammers were unlucky not to win and the 8-0 hammering of Macclesfield have turned West Ham’s season around.
The manner of the victory over the League Two strugglers in the cup has caught the eye and the imagination, though.
It suggests West Ham’s players are starting to really buy into and implement Pellegrini’s famed attacking philosophy.
And that bodes well for Hammers fans who will be in for a real treat if the history books are anything to go by.
That’s because Pellegrini has remarkably broken the club record for goals scored in a season at many of his previous clubs.
The three that West Ham fans will appreciate most, though, is Villareal, Real Madrid and Manchester City.
In the 2004/5 season Pellegrini’s Villareal side famed for their brilliant football scored 69 goals, a new club record which remains today.
At Real Madrid Pellegrini was at it again setting a new goal record and signing Cristiano Ronaldo which put the building blocks in place for that record to be surpassed by successor Jose Mourinho.
Then at Manchester City Pellegrini led his side to break the 100 goal mark for the season, in all competitions, in just 34 games – the quickest century in the Premier League era, beating Chelsea’s 2012–13 record by eight matches.
By the end of January 2014, Pellegrini’s title winners had scored 115 goals in all competitions – the most goals scored by any club in Europe.
Maintaining such a scoring rate would see them surpass Chelsea’s Premier League record of 103 goals in 2009–10, and the 143 scored by Manchester United’s “Busby Babes” in the 1957–58 season.
The most goals West Ham have ever scored in the top flight was 96 in the 1928/29 season.
It would take some season to beat that and is highly unlikely in the fiercely competitive top flight nowadays.
But the Hammers could well be in for a bumper season for goals in the modern era in line with Pellegrini’s legacy at previous clubs.
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