Huddersfield’s visit to the London Stadium will be a great chance for West Ham to shrug off the defeat to Cardiff, and a now-regular mainstay of Manuel Pellegrini’s side has declared why the Irons must win.
Speaking with the club’s official matchday programme for the Terriers trip to Stratford, Angelo Ogbonna looked back on last week’s result in South Wales and asserted that the team must put the result right against Jan Siewert’s relegation strugglers.
The Italian did, though, make a point about winning on home soil being a key reason why we must win at the weekend, rather than seeing it as just another fixture against someone desperate to put points on the board.
It could be seen as nothing, but it could also be seen as a potential reason why we lost at the Cardiff City Stadium — failing to take the home pressure on the road and see the opponent as a worthy candidate to overcome despite their league position.
Once again hammering home the mentality issues that plague East London.
“It’s very important that we win the game [against Huddersfield],” the 13-cap international claimed. “It’s not an easy game, we can’t start like we did in the last game. The Premier League is like that, you can’t just relax because they are at the bottom of the table. We have to fight and try to get the three points.
“I think we need to be concentrated and focused. We play at home and we cannot fail at home in front of our fans. We can’t make the same mistakes like we did last weekend.
“I don’t think there’s added pressure playing the team at the bottom, but we have to be confident and not make the same mistakes. When you play against teams at the bottom, you can’t relax. That can never happen and maybe that’s where mistakes come.”
