David Moyes has hit out at the Premier League over the fixture schedule that has set his West Ham side up to play three games in just seven days.
The Hammers host Silkeborg at the London Stadium tonight in their penultimate Europa Conference League group stage game, with a point enough to secure top spot and a bye to the last-16 in March.
Moyes’s men then go to Old Trafford to face the Scot’s former club, Manchester United, on Sunday and while there is nothing unusual about that turnaround, the manager cannot understand why his side were made to play Bournemouth in the League on Monday night while teams without European commitments played at the weekend.
“Everybody is feeling really difficult,” Moyes said. “I thought it might have been easy to maybe put Leeds and Fulham on Monday night, that’s just one game I could think of off the top of my head.
“If that had been on Monday I don’t think anybody would have said anything different from West Ham and Bournemouth. Let’s be fair, we weren’t just talking about it a week before it happened, we actually tried doing something about it probably two months ago when we knew the scheduling.
“This week has become really difficult.”
Moyes is considering handing a debut to £28million summer signing Nayef Aguerd, with the centre-half in the squad for the first time since suffering an ankle injury in pre-season soon after his arrival from Rennes.
“I don’t want to put too much on him and give him time,” Moyes said. “I don’t think he’s ready for the Premier League games but we’ll see for this European games.
“He’s keen and he’s a good character. I’ve got to say, we think he’s a really stylish footballer.”
