The Wolves win would seem a watershed moment for West Ham’s two January recruits who took a while to get started, after arriving at striker-starved London Stadium in January.
Somewhat controversial at the time was the signing of virtual unknown Pablo Felipe – more so as time has passed, with question marks hanging over the transfer fee and the amount West Ham paid for the Brazilian.
Taty Castellanos was the more conventional of the two signings, having been successful across the Atlantic in the MLS and more recently with Serie A’s Lazio.
This weekend’s two goals in quick succession – the fastest in the Premier League this season – will have convinced many fence-sitters of the value of the pair thanks to the neat exchange between the two that led to West Ham’s second goal.
Pablo’s neat footwork for Castellanos’ first Wolves strike has finally got him off the mark with a West Ham assist. The pair seem to sum up Nuno’s version of West Ham United: Industrious, hardworking and playing first and foremost for their team mates.
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Pablo Felipe & Taty Castellanos
Taty and Pablo are the epitome of this new West Ham under Nuno
As Mateus Fernandes states on whufc.com , their assimilation into the club and all of Nuno’s team building is starting to pay dividends, after a difficult first few weeks:
“It’s not been easy for him [ Castellanos] or Pablo, coming to England to play in the Premier League. I felt the same when I first moved, so it’s our job to help make things easy for them. I speak Portuguese and Spanish, and the important thing is they are happy, which I think you can see on the pitch.”
More than carefully curated team bonding and slick PR work, it seems we are seeing the fruition of all the team bonding work with a real coming together of a ‘collective’, with the right ethics to pull together – unlike one relegation rival in particular.
It is no co-incidence that now that certain divisive high profile players have left the club, West Ham appears more ‘United’ under Nuno than at any stage in the last couple of years.