West Ham player says he’s ‘collecting fruits’ of work, reveals Manuel Pellegrini’s tactical change

Felipe Anderson is finally back to the Brazilian national team.

The midfielder has made his only international appearance in 2015, and due to his great form for West Ham United, he’s caught the Seleção’s eyes once again.

His comeback was a subject for Seleção SporTV this week, where the player was interviewed and talked a little about his feelings around returning to the team.

“It is a very good feeling, a dream come true, a lot of work that I have been doing and collecting these fruits,” Felipe Anderson told Sportv. “It’s not only this year that I have this focus, it’s been for long time that I have been working to reach this moment and this is an achievement that makes me very happy and very motivated.”

Journalist André Rizek pointed out that Felipe Anderson is West Ham’s top scorer, although he wasn’t much of a scorer during his time at Santos, when manager Muricy Ramalho would always demand that from him.

“Professor Muricy always pressured me very much for not entering the box, asked me why I did not get in the box to score goals. I knew I had to improve on that, but of course I always had a style of creating plays. But I worked hard on this issue of arriving and making the final move to receive the ball. Of entering the box and receiving the cross.

“And now I’m accomplishing this feat of scoring several goals and being a top scorer of the team. I believe that with him I learned a lot, knowing that it’s important not only to make assists, but also contribute directly with goals for the team. It’s important for an attacking player to score goals. And this year things are happening, the goals are coming out, everything I learned from him I have put into practice throughout my career.”

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Then the pundits, who admittedly don’t watch much of the Premier League, have asked Felipe Anderson in which positions has he been playing in so they could analyse what can he bring to the team. The player has claimed he can play as an advanced midfielder or as a winger, and explained that he has changed positions after signing for West Ham.

Manuel Pellegrini’s tactical decisions saw the Brazilian change sides.

“I played a lot of time in Italy, five years, always on the right. This year now at West Ham, I talked to the manager and he said he wanted me to play on the left, that he saw me very well there. And it worked. So I think I feel free to play in every attacking position.”