Green Street Hammers
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A settled Felipe Anderson proving a bargain at 35m

By Scott Johnson

LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 08: Felipe Anderson of West Ham United celebrates after scoring his team's third goal during the Premier League match between West Ham United and Crystal Palace at London Stadium on December 8, 2018 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Stephen Pond/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 08: Felipe Anderson of West Ham United celebrates after scoring his team's third goal during the Premier League match between West Ham United and Crystal Palace at London Stadium on December 8, 2018 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Stephen Pond/Getty Images) /
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The first few weeks of the season weren’t kind to Felipe Anderson. Many thought West Ham had made a mistake in purchasing the winger. Now we’re thinking we got a deal.

Ever since that fateful conference when Bilic announced Payet didn’t want to play for West Ham anymore, the club has had issues. Lacking a real creative dynamo the club has struggled, not managing back to back wins for almost two years. Now we have a host of players out injured, and despite losing our opening 4 games we’re up to 10th, only 5 points behind United.

I never doubted Pellegrini would get us into a much better position and style of play than we had seen under Moyes or Bilic (post-Boleyn), but I am genuinely surprised how quick the turnaround has been. Given he has come in and tried to implement a brand new style, he has seen it reap rewards even despite a host of injuries to key players. But Felipe Anderson has been incredible in recent games, and you sense it’s not the end of it for the Brazilian.

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In the first few weeks there was always likely to be teething issues, but Anderson didn’t seem to be linking up too well with his teammates. There was criticism of his defensive ability and if he couldn’t produce enough going forward he wasn’t doing enough overall. Now? He’s our most explosive player, our top scorer in the league (the same number as Lukaku and Lacazette) and his vision is creating chances around the side as well.

Not since Payet have we had a player with the technical ability of Anderson. That ability to create from nothing is priceless to a side like West Ham, where goalscoring can be tough. But with him on one side, and the Scottish Messi on the other, we never seem devoid of ideas. Even without Arnie in the middle.

The fact of the matter is we’ve gone from battling relegation, through a tough period of transition, to being only 5 points off 6th with wind in our sails and winnable games ahead of us. Anderson has been a huge part of that and if 35m is the price we paid, I think we got a deal. Players like him don’t come along too often and we’ve got him firing.