David Moyes hailed Alphonse Areola after the goalkeeper’s heroics helped his West Ham side banish their midseason blip with victory at Everton.
Having gone eight games without a win in 2024, Hammers made it two in the space of six days when coming behind to beat the Toffees 3-1 at Goodison Park.
Stoppage time strikes from Tomas Soucek and Edson Alvarez completed the turnaround, after Kurt Zouma’s header had cancelled out Beto’s opener for the hosts.
However, it was Areola to whom Moyes rushed at the final whistle, the Frenchman having made a string of superb saves to keep his side in the contest, including from Beto’s first-half penalty.
“Alphonse’s goalkeeping and his saves have been great,” Moyes said.
“You could hear the crowd here chanting his name here today and quite rightly so. He deserves all the plaudits he’s been given.
“He played brilliantly well, saved a good penalty kick and we move onto European football again in midweek with a bit of confidence again.”
Coupled with Monday night’s 4-2 win over Brentford, the victory has seen the Hammers climb back into the European places and eased the pressure on Moyes.
He now takes his team to Freiburg on Thursday for the first leg of a Europa League last-16 tie the Hammers are firm favourites to win, having already beaten the German outfit home and away in the group stage.
“I’m thrilled that we’ve got three points,” the Scot added.
“I know from my history that it’s never easy to win here, especially when we went a goal down as we had to come from behind to get there.
“Over the years, I think what we’ve probably had was a bit of resilience and we’ve tried to show everybody how much we care and how much we want to win.”
