David Moyes believes West Ham remain nowhere near having a recruitment system as effective as Brighton.
The Hammers visit the Amex Stadium on Saturday afternoon two points above the relegation zone with their hosts pushing for Europe despite losing midfielder Leandro Trossard to Arsenal in January and manager Graham Potter to Chelsea six weeks into the campaign.
But Brighton’s ability to continuously unearth gems such as Moises Caicedo, from Ecuador, and Kaoru Mitoma, from Japan, has ensured they continue to make strides. And Moyes thinks it would take up to a decade for West Ham to implement the same long-term view that has brought success on the south coast because his club remains too focused on bringing in players who can make instant impacts.
Asked how far West Ham are from matching Albion’s recruitment system, Moyes said: “A long, long way away.
“Brighton’s policy is different, looking for younger [players] and for time. Here at West Ham, most of the time we are looking for immediate, instant players to come in rather than buying for the future. We’ve got a different recruitment policy to what Brighton would have.
“When I always talk here about growth and things which could be improved on, that’s one of the things. But it has taken Brighton around 10 years with a bit of up and down.
“You may be at a club where they go through loads of managers but they haven’t. They’ve chosen managers who they think will follow their vision and how they see the club moving on.
“There are a lot of clubs who don’t work with that and West Ham is one of those clubs. We work more on getting it now, instant.”
West Ham have failed to beat Brighton in their past 11 meetings, a run Moyes described as inexplicable, and the East Londoners could badly do with a first away win since August.
Alphonse Areola will continue in goal after Lukasz Fabianski had surgery on an orbital fracture sustained in last weekend’s 4-0 win over Nottingham Forest, while Danny Ings will start having been Cup-tied for the midweek defeat away to Manchester United.
Moyes, however, is wary of overloading Ings after he made his first start for the club against Forest, scoring the opening two goals before coming off in the 84th minute. The 30-year-old last completed 90 minutes in October and Moyes is leaning on Ings’ goals to get them out of trouble - plus continue their European run ahead of a Conference League round of 16 tie away to AEK Larnaca on Thursday.
“It was probably the longest he has played for a long time regarding minutes [against Forest],” Moyes said. “It’s not getting him fitter but it’s about getting him back into that mode where he’s ready to play that level of minutes.
"We’ve got two league games, two European games to play before the international break.
“I hope Danny is ready to play in them all, it might be that he doesn’t play every minute but we’re hoping that he’s fit and available for all of them.”
