Pellegrini urges West Ham to bounce back against Brighton
West Ham finally seemed to have gathered some momentum after a lacklustre start to the season but the Hammers suffered a shock 2-0 defeat away at Burnley in their last game. Having won five of their last six games in the Premier League, Manuel Pellegrini’s men went into the game against Burnley high on confidence but were below-par on the day.
Manuel Pellegrini has pointed to the busy festive schedule as one of the reasons behind his team’s 2-0 defeat but has also urged them to start 2019 on a good note when they face Brighton at home on Wednesday night.
“When you lose you want to play immediately,” Pellegrini exclaimed, “But when you play so many games with the same players – including three young players in [Grady] Diangana, [Xande] Silva, and [Conor] Coventry – you maybe want a few more days to recover.
“But at least we’ve had since Sunday for this one – we have more than 72 hours and I hope that the players will do it.
“We played seven games in December before Burnley and won five and we need to show what we did in those.
“We need to recover immediately from Sunday’s defeat and we need to continue adding points.
“We’re playing at home against Brighton, who are a difficult team, but I hope we will see the team we saw in all the other games.”
“Maybe Pablo Zabaleta can return. Sunday was the first day he didn’t have the fever and we’ll see with him. The other injured players won’t be ready.
“Javier [Hernandez] had the injury against Watford and he needs at least ten days more to recover.”
