Nikola Vlasic was in a defiant mood after West Ham’s 1-0 defeat to Wolves last weekend.
The Croatia international was a second-half substitute as David Moyes looked to ring the changes in an attempt to get the Hammers back into the game, after Raul Jimenez put the hosts in front in the 58th minute.
But he was unable to influence proceedings as the midfielder’s wait for a first goal involvement in claret and blue continues into an 11th game.
But after the clash, Vlasic made it clear that he and his teammates will not dwell on the loss, which was just West Ham’s third in 21 outings, and that they will be eager to bounce straight back when they travel to Rapid Vienna in the Europa League on Thursday.
Speaking to the club’s official website, Vlasic said: “We weren’t at our level like we are used to so we need to bounce back quickly and now we need to continue as we were before we started this game. We need to forget this quickly and move on.
“This is our 12th game of the season in the Premier League, so there is a long way to go, but we know our quality and people are starting to recognise how good West Ham are, so we need to bounce back like I said.”
The last time West Ham tasted defeat, against Brentford at the beginning of October, they went on a seven-match unbeaten run, which included wins over Everton, Tottenham, Manchester City and Liverpool.
Looking forward, the Hammers face Manchester City, Chelsea, Dinamo Zagreb and Arsenal in their next seven games and, while we’ve already seen their ability to beat any team on their day, Moyes’ side are approaching a very difficult run of fixtures heading into the busy festive period.
It means it’s even more important for West Ham to bounce back quickly from the performance and defeat at Wolves in order to prevent their strong start to 2021/2022 from unravelling as quickly as it began.
The good news is, they have only lost back-to-back games in the Premier League twice since football restarted mid-pandemic. Their first two fixtures in project restart came in defeat to Newcastle and Spurs, before they lost to Newcastle and Chelsea in April earlier this year.
Besides those two occasions, Moyes’ West Ham have shown great resilience to bounce back from defeat, often using them as a springboard to go on unbeaten runs; after their first defeat of this season, they went on a run of three successive victories, while they followed the Brentford loss with seven matches without defeat.
So the evidence is there that West Ham will learn from the defeat at Wolves and push forward with yet another positive run of results.
