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Wanyama’s peace message

October 7th, 2013 3 min read

Why can’t the world live like brothers and sisters?

It has been a devastating time for people back in my homeland Kenya following the atrocities of Westgate Mall in Nairobi. It’s very sad that things like this happen. We are all one human family and I wish we could all share peace.

We are hearing tales of courage and it will take a lot more courage for the people to get through the aftermath of what has happened. My prayers go out to the families and the victims.

Family safe

I have spoken to my family back home and everyone will know someone who has been affected by what happened. It has affected the whole country.

It was a peaceful place, a place where people went to be happy and now Kenyans must show real strength to come together and support each other.

The Premier League table looked very nice after the weekend. We are fifth and have the best defensive record along with Tottenham having conceded just two goals.

It’s a good start but that’s all it is a good start. We deserve to hold our heads high but it’s safe to say that we are not getting carried away at Southampton.

Our coach Mauricio Pochettino is an impressive guy. He was a tough defender as a player and has great experience from his time with Argentina and coaching in Spain. He gets his message across easily and understands each player’s role. He’s very good.

It shows in the way we won against Crystal Palace that it was another good team effort. We played for each other and when you have strikers such as Dani Osvaldo and Rickie Lambert you always have a chance.

Lambert has been fantastic. Everybody knows how much of a threat he poses in the box but his free-kick on Saturday showed he can score from anywhere.

The key for us now is to keep working hard and keep our feet on the ground. We have Swansea and Manchester United to come so there is always another big task around the corner.

I came to the Premier League because I wanted to test myself and move to the next level. There is no doubt it has been tough but I am enjoying it.

The best way to learn is to play against good players and my toughest opponent so far has been Steven Gerrard at Liverpool. I obviously knew about him but playing against him, I learned so much more.

He is such a clever player with his movement and his passing. It is hard to get him when he is on the ball and he is always moving into a different position.

I tried to close him down. We knew we had to stop him and close him out of the game. If you allow him, he can destroy your team so we knew it would make it difficult for Liverpool to control the game if we could close him down.

We worked harder in the second half and got our goal but it was difficult.

Great result

We are a passing team and we moved the ball well enough but I’d still say Liverpool are the toughest team we have faced. Just their playing style and the level of players they have.

A few people asked if I swapped shirts but no I didn’t. Sometimes when you have a great result like that I like to keep the shirt for myself.

I had heard a lot about the atmosphere and the fans it was great. Certainly it seemed strange as they sing a lot of songs I recognise from my time at Celtic, particularly ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

They were probably a bit quieter than Celtic fans though maybe that was because we won.

I am settling in now at Southampton. We have a good group of players and everyone is easy to get on with. The real joker is Jos Hooiveld.

He is a nice lad who I got to know a little bit at Celtic and he has made me feel really welcome since I’ve been here. He is always up to something.

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