David Moyes believes that West Ham will have enough resilience to reach the final of the Europa Conference League when they resume their battle with AZ Alkmaar next week.
West Ham will travel to the Netherlands with a 2-1 lead after fighting back from a goal down to win the first leg of their Conference League semi-final at the London Stadium last night.
Tijjani Reijnders gave AZ a half-time lead, but Saïd Benrahma equalised from the spot and Michail Antonio scored the winner with 15 minutes left.
“I hugely believe we’ve got a big resilience here,” Moyes said. “I think we have it through the club, I think we have it through the team and we’ll need it. We’ve needed it in the big games in the Premier League. We’re just off a big win against Manchester United.
“Tonight, we’ve won 2-1 in a semi-final first leg, so you’d have to say that’s OK. When it’s a cup competition, it doesn’t matter how you do it really and the job is to get it done. We’ve not got it done yet, far from it, we’ve got a big job to do next week.”
Moyes admitted that West Ham, who have not been in a European final since 1976, will need to improve. They did not create much and there were parallels with their defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt in the Europa League semi-finals last year when they were behind.
“We’ve got a slight narrow lead but nothing more than that,” Moyes said. “When I got to half-time I felt there were still three-quarters of the game to go. We had to make sure we picked up. We did. The decision-making in the final third in the first half was so poor. In the second half we got a little better.
“I think the tie is evenly balanced. I didn’t think we gave up too many opportunities, even though we conceded the goal. It was our play in the higher part of the pitch where we didn’t play well enough. We got ourselves in front, which is a big thing.”
