West Ham United manager David Moyes spoke at length following his side’s 4-0 win over Nottingham Forest on Saturday at the London Stadium.
Two goals in two minutes from Danny Ings on his full debut, followed by further strikes by Declan Rice and Michail Antonio, sealed West Ham’s biggest win of the season, moving them out of the Premier League relegation zone.
Here is every word Moyes said on the win, Ings’ goals, injuries to Vladimir Coufal and Lukasz Fabianski and more.
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Where has that performance been?
How long have I been waiting for that? But it was nice today. I thought in the first half, we played pretty well and again, it just looked like another day where ‘my goodness, we’re not going to score a goal.’ We hadn't done an awful lot wrong in the first half, we must have had about seven or eight corner kicks and opportunities. I think Danny Ings missed a good chance from a cross for a header, but it was our best chance in the first half. But certainly in the second half, we started to play a bit better. I actually thought when we got the second goal, I’m thinking ‘my goodness, I’m beginning to see the West Ham team from last season,’ what I saw a little bit at times last season. Even the subs came on and had an impact and helped us. From our point of view, there was a lot of really good things today.
How important was it for Danny Ings to take his chances today?
Well, what we said is we need someone who knows the art of it and knows exactly where his runs are, where he should be. His bits of link up play were good as well at times today. Actually, I was surprised when he missed from the header in the first half. Getting across the defender for the second one and Said (Benrahma) did great to have the assist and make the chance for him. Danny sort of continued it on and I know he bundled in the net, but that's the goals you want to see from centre forwards at times. You’re not always getting the pure finish or getting room in the box. Great credit to him.
Your celebrations after the second goal were reminiscent of the win over Sevilla last season. How tough have the last few months been for you?
The important thing is I've got really good backing, incredible backing behind the scenes. Really, I don’t say it’s you people here or not you generally or any one person, but behind the scenes, there’s been no noise. Calm, got on with the job and sometimes, to be a manager and to stay in your job a long time, you need to have good owners. I was really fortunate when I was at Preston North End, I had a fantastic owner. When I went to Everton, I had unbelievable owners and people who supported me and I have to say, since I’ve come to West Ham, I’ve had very much the same.
Is this win a kickstart for the rest of the season?
Well I’m not coming here with a bottle of champagne and thinking that everything is hunky dory, I’m certainly not doing that, but I’m thrilled that I’ve won 4-0 today. I’m going to enjoy it, a glass of wine tonight and why should I not? I’ve had a lot of bad days, but overall, it’s a start for us. I actually think our performances, probably since coming back from the World Cup have shown an improvement, the results, yes, with a defeat, but you probably read my programme notes, today was our fourth game out of 13 at home and now, we’re about to go three games on the road again. There is a little bit here where I’m saying ‘wait a minute, our home form is beginning to pick up, we’re beginning to get back in form.’ Hopefully, we can continue that.
Do you feel the ruthless nature of the win makes up for recent missed opportunities at all?
No, it’s not made up for it at all, the amount of bad nights I’ve had. What I’ve got to say, scoring four goals today, or against any Premier League team is hard to do. In truth, there might have been one or two more close efforts as well. But overall, it was a really good performance, we changed how we played today. I wanted to make sure that we were flexible and we could go from a back three/five to a back four. We probably still don’t quite have the right balance because of injuries and different things, but I want us on to build on [it]. Our middle to front play was much better than maybe we’ve had for a few days.
How pleased are you pick up your 250th Premier League win?
I saw that yesterday. They're all important, if you don't win your first game, you might not get your second game in football management, just like if you don’t win your 250th you might not get your 251st. It’s not bad.
Do you think that is the best Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek and Lucas Paqueta have played together?
That’s one of the better days we’ve had. We’ve tried to get Tomas [Soucek] a bit higher up, we’ve tried to get [Lucas] Paqueta, tried to get Dec [Rice]. Dec probably played a bit more deeper today but got a goal, and maybe there was another opportunity he might have taken on as well. I think that shouldn’t change whatever we do, I still want the three of them to try and find goals. We’re trying to get Tomas more goals and we’re trying to get Lucas in positions where we feel he will maybe hurt the opposition more.
What is the latest on Vladimir Coufal’s and Lukasz Fabianski’s injuries?
Vladimir Coufal has got a bit of a heel injury, he’s been feeling a bit on his heel but I didn’t think it was quite that bad, but he had to come off with it at half-time. You’ve probably seen Lukasz’s eye is quite bad, I think we’re more worried about his eye socket area, that sort of thing.
Have you seen Lukasz Fabianski, does he look okay?
I’ve had a look, he seems okay. Obviously it’s come up very quickly and it’s black and blue.
Is Lucas Paqueta’s shoulder okay after going down in the first half?
[Lucas] Paqueta went down with his shoulder where he’s had the problems, so I sort of thought ‘oh, here we go again.’ He seemed to come through it quite well and did a lot of good things and things we really like.
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