West Ham broke their transfer record to bring in Felipe Anderson
(Image credit: PA)
When Felipe Anderson arrived at West Ham United in July 2018, he settled in quickly, enjoying a promising first season, netting ten times for his new side.
The Hammers had paid a club record £36million to bring the Brazilian to east London from Lazio and these early performances saw him become a fan favourite.
Anderson on his Arnautovic partnership
Marko Arnautovic spent two seasons at West Ham (Image credit: Alamy)Austrian international Marko Arnautovic arrived at West Ham in 2017 following a four-season spell at Stoke City, and his Premier League experience quickly impressed Anderson.
“Marko Arnautovic has great pace and excellent technique, and I really clicked with him on the pitch,” the Brazilian tells FourFourTwo when asked to name his best team-mate at the club. “He stood out a lot, both in training and in games.”
Arnautovic spent five seasons at Stoke Arnautovic would leave the club at the end of the 2018/19 campaign for Chinese Super League side Shanghai Port in a £22million move, with Anderson’s performances dipping the following campaign, as he would find the back of the net just once during the disrupted 2019/20 campaign.
He would then head to Porto on loan in October 2020, before returning to Lazio in a permanent move the following summer.
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But as Anderson looks back at his time in London, he is able to appreciate the relative anonymity he enjoyed away from the football pitch during his time in the UK.
“Sometimes, when the traffic was bad, my family and I would take the tube to go out for dinner or afternoon tea, with the rain falling outside [laughs],” he continues.
Anderson won two Brazil caps “That was probably the most London thing I did. I’m a homely person, so I spent most of my time at our place in Canary Wharf. I was hardly ever recognised on the tube!
“That freedom was nice – something you don’t usually have in a footballer’s life.”
For more than a decade, Joe Mewis has worked in football journalism as a reporter and editor. Mewis has had stints at Mirror Football and LeedsLive among others and worked at FourFourTwo throughout Euro 2024, reporting on the tournament. In addition to his journalist work, Mewis is also the author of four football history books that include times on Leeds United and the England national team. Now working as a digital marketing coordinator at Harrogate Town, too, Mewis counts some of his best career moments as being in the iconic Spygate press conference under Marcelo Bielsa and seeing his beloved Leeds lift the Championship trophy during lockdown.
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