David Moyes admits that his West Ham United squad may have found it difficult to repeat their Premier League form of the last two seasons after being pushed to the limit in the 2021/22 campaign.
The Hammers achieved back-to-back top seven finishes under the Scot and also went on a run to the Europa League semi-finals last term.
Moyes’ side are unbeaten in the Europa Conference League this campaign, but they are at risk of missing out on European competition altogether next season due to their poor league form. As things stand, the Irons sit 16th in the Premier League table with just 18 points from 20 games and they are 13 points behind the top seven teams.
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On Monday, league focus will be put to one side as West Ham take on League One outfit Derby County in the FA Cup fourth round. For Moyes, his aim is to get the Hammers into Europe for a third consecutive season and if that can’t be done by where they finish in the Premier League then the alternative is by winning either the FA Cup or the Europa Conference League.
“We’re really disappointed about where we are in the league but we’re really positive that we’re still in the FA Cup. We got through a really difficult game at Brentford, we go to Derby, we want to get through that one,” said Moyes.
“We were in a [Europa Conference League] group where we never lost a game. You finish seventh in the Premier League you earn the right to get there. I know that there is another route into Europe by winning that competition, so my aim at the moment is to say I’ve got to somehow, if I’m not going to get it by my league position, I’ve got to find a way to try and do it with one of the cup competitions if I can.
“So behind all that, the cup competitions are huge if we can do it. Trying to get the balance right with playing people, keeping people happy and getting the right team out, all of that is really important. But, hopefully we can go and do a job [against Derby] but I said that at Kidderminster last year and it was tough as old boots when we went there.”
West Ham were almost on the receiving end of a cup upset last term when they found themselves 1-0 down against non-league Kidderminster Harriers in the fourth round. Declan Rice’s stoppage-time equaliser forced the tie into extra-time and Jarrod Bowen spared the Premier League side’s blushes with a winner in the 120th minute.
The Hammers were knocked out in round five by Southampton and Moyes’ squad came agonisingly close to picking up a trophy last term but came up short after getting knocked out of the Europa League semi-finals by eventual winners Eintracht Frankfurt.
This season, they have looked a shadow of the top seven side they were, despite a positive summer transfer window that saw up to £160million being spent on players who looked as though they could take the club that one step further. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way.
But it’s not just their summer signings who have struggled this term. Those who have proved influential in the last two years have found it difficult to emulate their huge success and Moyes believes that maybe it has taken its toll.
The Scot said: “If I were to go back and say, against Nottingham Forest we missed a penalty kick, we hit the bar three times in the opening game of the season [against Manchester City], we go to Liverpool and we miss a penalty kick when it’s 0-0 at the time, I think we end up losing 1-0. But that’s our own doing, that will happen at every club, everyone will have their own hard luck stories.
“If I am being honest, I don’t think we’ve hit the heights of what we should have done and I don’t necessarily mean the new players. There are some players from last season who maybe have bust their balls to get to where we’ve done and we maybe pushed every last drop out of them, maybe have found it difficult to come back and go again.
“Sometimes it’s unfair and you can probably witness that now. What we don’t want to do is be where we are, we have to get away from where we are. So maybe we need a bit of a kick up the jacksie to see if we can sort of find a way of getting back to [where we were] and realising ‘wait a minute’.
“We want to be a better football team, we are trying to become a better football team, but maybe at the moment we have to get back to being a winning team, where wins don’t really matter what they look like as long as we get the results.”
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