James Collins was proud of his instrumental defensive display in West Ham’s 0-0 draw at Anfield on Sunday.
The welshman had to be at his best to prevent Luis Suarez from doing the damage we all know he is capable of in front of goal.
And he managed to do just that as West Ham secured an unlikely point away from home, continuing their record of avoiding defeat in the first game of every month so far this season.
He told whufc.com: “It was great and it’s always nice to play well at places like Anfield. The whole team was spot-on in terms of our defensive performance and, going the other way, we’ve had chances so it’s a massive point.
“Suarez nutmegged me twice, to be fair, but I thought about how I was going to defend against him before the game. I was wary of the fact he goes over as well and that’s why you have to stay on your feet as much as possible and to win the ball you’ve got to just go for it sometimes.
“That was the game plan and luckily it worked. It was one of those games when it’s come off for me.”
And Collins had praise for manager Sam Allardyce and they way he approached the game tactically, while also pointing out that he and everyone connected with the club are pleased with the way the season has gone so far.
“The gaffer said before the game, if we can come here and play and defend how we did at Stoke, we’d get a result and he has got his tactics spot-on again as usual so all credit to him,” he said.
“We’ve done great and we’ve set our sights on coming tenth and we don’t want to slip up now, especially with the start we had.
“We started off great and got loads of points and then we had a dodgy middle of the season and now we’re playing well again. We just want to get as many points as we can. We were looking at tenth and that’s still a possibility.”
