Match of The Day had an interesting comparison of last season's record with this season's. West Ham currently have 11 points from six games, whereas last season we had four points from six games. It's early days, but in his understated way, Pellegrini seems to be making progress.
Most encouraging has been the improvement in defence after three clean sheets. Fredericks is starting to look like a proper speedy right-back and Ogbonna has come in and looked much improved. Arthur Masuaku has shown more defensive discipline too and his replacement on Sunday, Aaron Cresswell, scored a sensational free kick and didn't get caught for pace on the turn through some shrewd positional play. Anderson, Noble, Rice and Fornals also provided a much better defensive shield for the back four.
While at 32 Mark Noble looked the best player on the pitch, always doing the simple things well. Now he's surrounded by talent like Rice, Anderson, Lanzini, Yarmolenko and Haller we're starting to see that he's actually a very good player in his own right.
Though it is, of course, only six league games in so far. Now I've been positive about the Hammers, we'll probably get thrashed at Oxford and Bournemouth...
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