David Moyes
Did the 120 minutes against Sevilla have a bearing on this game
Undoubtedly but more to do with preparation, I did not think it was our energy, if anything I thought we had more. What tends to happen is in the opening part of the game it shows. The players have had a brilliant week from what they have done and even today, you take the last two or three minutes out and we had a real good go.
Are you disappointed with the third goal?
Incredibly disappointed if you were a U11 coach you would be disappointed.
With Michail Antonio was it just tiredness?
No, I did not think he reached his level. We needed Michail to play at a really high level and the level of the Tottenham front players was such an unbelievably high level. We had a lot of the ball and I watched them here against Everton and it was very similar Everton had a lot of the ball and without much of the ball Tottenham were a couple of goals up and it is similar to today. We had the ball for the opening 15 minutes or so but they were two goals up.
How difficult is it to stop Tottenham?
Incredibly difficult because Harry Kane is a world-class player and if you do not get it right you will be in trouble and we did not quite get it right. I thought we started the game better and were a little unfortunate, not to say they should not have scored as they had another chance, Son missed but one hits Kurt Zouma’s knee and the other a deflection over the goalkeeper we were are 2-0 down when we had not done that much wrong, so credit to the players for sticking at it and hanging it to get a goal back and we had that up until 90 minutes. After the efforts for everything, they have done this week the players I have to say well done.
Antonio missed two chances is he struggling with confidence in front of goal?
Two chances yeah. I do not know if he is struggling with confidence. Mich is a good guy and he does not come over that way [as a confidence player] but if you are a No.9 at any football club you want to score goals and that will fill your confidence. He had two good opportunities and somebody told me Spurs had four shot on target and we had one and Tottenham scored three and we scored one. We had a chance and they will say the same, there was not much in it but ultimately Tottenham can suck you in and wait until you give the ball away and then get the ball to Kane and Son very quickly and they are great at it. If you have very good attacking players you can cause Tottenham problems because the opposition attackers can cause Tottenham problems and if you do not give the ball away so much it might limit the times Kane and Son can break on you. We kept the ball well but in the final third we did not have an idea of where we were going to go with it. We did not deliver a good cross or hold up a good pass, quite often it was into feet and we did not hold it up. That was the big difference between the two sides Tottenham were very good in their front line.
You looked frustrated at times with Said Benrahma’s ball retention, collapsing to your knees at one point
Yes, when he was caught on the edge of the box and thought it was a free-kick, and I felt he could have released the ball a bit quicker. But Said has come back to life a bit, there was nothing [wrong] with Said today he has come back to life and is beginning to show better signs again and the goal today will help him
Were the forwards the difference between the teams today?
No, I do not think it was just Tottenham’s front two, they have a team of good players, not just the front two. But if you ask me today the difference it was we had two very good midfield players and Spurs have very good midfield players and we played our wing-backs against their wing-backs. Was there much difference in all areas of the field? For me there was not much difference, I could say their defending compared to ours but I think that came from their forward players, the quality of their forward players was so good.
The top four will be quite difficult now bearing in mind your European games
I am getting a bit annoyed, not that I am being asked it because I am also quite pleased because it tells you we were a side being talked about for the top four and if someone said that at the start of the season it would be all belly laughs. But we have been challenging and if you said that at the start of the season none of you would have said yes so for you to now ask me it really should be ‘how well have West Ham done to stay until the final third of the season with eight games to go’ and probably only now dropped out of the top four [conversation] because in truth we have been in that bracket for a lot of the season but with the quality of Tottenham and the spend of the other teams compared to us, I think and I said this from the start if we maintained where we were from last year that would be brilliant. We have not only done that but we have done a little bit better because of the European games and having a decent run in the cups so I think now with eight league games to go and two games in the quarter-final of the Europa League that is monumental. The players have been fantastic, they have been unbelievable, to beat Aston Villa on Sunday and Sevilla in midweek and the of all the games to play Tottenham in a derby after playing 120 minutes and they are in good form and we are close in the league, you could not have picked a worse game to get after our midweek one.
Are you thankful for the international break?
I think it is not just me but all the managers are happy for the break because of the intensity of the games. It is no excuse because we want to be a big club and when you play in Europe you have to get used to it and the players do to, the preparation time, the recovery time, the one thing we have is a great resilience and the players showed that in the main today. Maybe we lacked some good defending and good finishing but in the main, we did not give in or cave in.
Are you giving the players time off?
Yes. But we are in training as well as we are getting ourselves ready for the most important part, and we want to be in the European positions. We have enjoyed the run this year and we want to get used to it again. Obviously, we have Lyon in between the league games so we have to try and train and get everybody fresh, fit, fully functioning and ready to go.
Will Vladimir Coufal and Jarrod Bowen be back after the international window?
I hope so, but I cannot guarantee it at the moment. I think Vladimir is a little further down the line because we know what he had, an operation on his hernia and he is doing quite well. Jarrod I cannot be sure on.
