West Ham United beat Newcastle United 3-0 on Saturday afternoon.
West Ham United boss Manuel Pellegrini has told Football.London that he wants to play with two strikers – and was impressed with the partnership of Marko Arnautovic and Javier Hernandez.
The Hammers needed to bounce back from a 4-0 home defeat to Manchester City, and did so in style with a 3-0 thumping of Newcastle United on Saturday afternoon.
Pellegrini saw Javier Hernandez justify his starting role with a brace, scoring in each half at St James’ Park, before Felipe Anderson added a third late in the day.
West Ham will now look to carry that form into their game against Cardiff City on Tuesday night, and the Hammers may well go with a two-man attack once again.
Pellegrini shifted to a 4-4-2 against Newcastle, using Anderson and Robert Snodgrass on the flanks, supporting the strike duo of Arnautovic and Hernandez in attack.
Hernandez has mostly been a substitute under Pellegrini, but showed what he can do with a two-goal salvo – and Pellegrini has now admitted that he always likes to play with two strikers, hinting that West Ham could play that was permanently.
“Yes,” said Pellegrini. “I normally like to play with two strikers, maybe I was so scared to come here before because everyone told me that West Ham haven’t won here many times in the last 20 seasons, so I had some doubt of course over who to play. In the end I went with two strikers and finally we played a very good,” he added.
Pellegrini often used two strikers at Manchester City, with Edin Dzeko or Alvaro Negredo usually supporting the more mobile Sergio Aguero or Stevan Jovetic – and he will now be hoping that Arnautovic and Hernandez can become that new superb partnership up top for West Ham.
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