#PLStories- David Moyes on West Ham’s loss against Brighton, Thilo Kehrer, Kurt Zouma and Emerson Palmieri signing #WHUFC
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David Moyes
What do you make of that performance?
It sounds as if you don’t say much about it. Look, I think it’s a really obvious thing to do, but I think it will be looked at really, really negatively and I can understand why. There was actually some good things in it for us. I thought we played relatively well in the opening 20 minutes or so, I thought the penalty makes a big dent in the game. I thought we looked as viable as them. If anything, I thought we restricted them to a lot of long balls and I thought we restricted them to a lot of long balls and I thought we were the ones picking it back up. The problem was, when we were picking it back up, we gave it away back to them too quickly and certainly when we got in the final third, we didn’t make the most of finishing chances or crossing or opportunities. The goal, the penalty kick was poor but I don’t think we necessarily played poor up to that point. I don’t think we had.
In recent years, creating chances and being in the final third has been a strength of yours. What has changed?
I was saying last year, we were one of the top scorers, we were scoring regular numbers. I said it as well talking about pre-season last year that we scored great goals in pre-season and we didn’t this year either. We’ve been struggling a little bit for the goals and let’s be fair, if it wasn’t for Jarrod Bowen’s goals probably in the second half of the season, we were tied up. We’ve been well aware that we’ve not been scoring and been as free flowing as we have been but we can’t just put that down to any of the goalscorers because you couldn’t say that they’ve been getting great crosses in the box and nicely slid passes in. Probably not.
What did you make of Thilo Kehrer’s first start and when did you decide he would play?
I slept on it overnight because I don’t think he was ready to start the game. He certainly wasn’t if you are talking about physical wise or even the boys haven’t had the chance to see how he plays or what he does or what his attributes would be. I felt that with the last couple of games having not gone so well, us not winning, I felt we put in someone who is a bit more of a recognised defender, an international player, than Ben Johnson, so that was my decision. I thought he actually played quite well, except he made the wrong decision to go to ground for the penalty kick, I thought he should have stayed on his feet. We gave the ball away terribly and they countered and I think if he stayed on his feet, I think he probably would have seen it.
Is it a case of him needing to carry on playing to get his confidence up?
I don’t think it was confidence. I think it was just a bad decision. I think he has plenty of confidence, I just think that he probably should have stayed on his feet instead of going to ground. That’s a decision sometimes as a defender you make, sometimes you get it right, sometimes you get it wrong.
Is it just a case of bedding in ideas and new signings or are you concerned with the way you have started the season?
Both. Concerned, but also having to bed people in. I’ve been sort of drip feeding you it by saying I’m not quite sure we’re ready yet, we’ve not quite got everything in place, there’s a little bit of a change coming and that’s where it’s been. We’ve had two and a half years where we’ve stayed up and we’ve got sixth and then we’ve got seventh and we’re trying to get into a position where we can challenge that again and that has been difficult, you can the quality some of the other teams have signed. Hopefully, our quality will show through in the coming weeks.
Is that really frustrating, as it is something you have alluded to for a few weeks now?
I think actually if you said to me today, but again, you wouldn’t say it, I couldn’t say it, you couldn’t say in the performance. I couldn’t turn around and say we were ready today, we didn’t show it. Certainly our centre half we bought in, Thilo, is not ready, if you want to call it that. Are the rest of the players who played today ready? Yes, they’ve now had three of four games under their belt and they are better and coming back, maybe a bit slow to start. We’ve not quite got some new players integrated into the squad and for that reason, I think we are just not quite there. Ultimately, we started the season three weeks ago and we have to be ready and I take responsibility for that.
Are the new signings showing signs of being ready?
I think it’s how quickly the new players integrate into the training and get used to it. If they don’t get used to the Premier League quickly then we have to keep going with players we’ve had, which at the moment looks like we could do with some freshening ourselves up. If they integrate very quickly and can make an impact in the Premier League, then we will get them in right away. At the moment, we are seeing flashes of it, I’m not seeing wholehearted things to make me go ‘yes, they are ready to start.’ I probably wouldn’t have started Thilo if I felt as if we’d maybe been in a better place and maybe if I had some other centre halves available, I wouldn’t have started him.
Will your run of upcoming games in quick succession, including in the Europa Conference League, help that process?
I hope so. I think it gives certainly the new signings and those players the opportunity to get some more minutes and us see how they do. As well, we must not forget that we signed a centre half that gets injured at Ibrox and is out for three months after going over on his ankle. We are not the sort of club who can go and buy six or seven superstar players, we are the sort of club that can buy two or three and we saw him as a key ingredient to where we are going. To lose that at the start is difficult for us and I think that has been shown, certainly in two of the games. I thought last week and this week, I thought we just lacked that wee bit of quality which would have come in and made a difference.
How serious is Vladimir Coufal’s injury?
Well, I just spoke to the medical team, they have not come and said anything is serious so I’m taking that as good news at the moment but I’ve not had chance to speak to them yet.
What is his injury?
I have no idea.
Have the new signings disappointed you in what they have shown you so far?
No, not at all. I think the bigger thing is I think like (Gianluca) Scamacca had no pre-season minutes at all. The same with Cornet, no pre-season minutes at all. Thilo Kehrer had a 21 and a 75 and a 20 or something like that. He’s at least had something, but not any 90 minutes. The other two I think are fine, it’s more Thilo hasn’t really had the time to integrate with us and us get used to him and find out what his traits were but Gianluca and Maxwel have more been just not having time to see them and get them some decent game time.
Is Kurt Zouma carrying a knock at the moment?
Kurt plays for us and he has been brilliant for us but he’s just another one who has started slow in pre-season and is maybe not quite where his levels are.
Even this early in the season, do you have alarm bells ringing around the first three games of the season?
Alarm bells I think are too strong. I think the thing you would think about is we finished seventh, we finished sixth, so we take positives from that, but let’s be fair prior to that, this club has been around these positions for a long time. I need to get them away from that position again and make sure we don’t slide towards that. I think we’ve got a different type of team but just lost a wee bit. Losing Mark Noble is really important to us. You can see things, even though he didn’t play, he was important around the club. Everyone talked about it at the end of last season so small things can make a big difference sometimes.
With Mark Noble gone, do other players need to step up and it cannot all be put onto Declan Rice?
Of course, of course. You are looking at that today and you are saying come on, you take responsibility, you take ownership of it. I could name a few who I thought ‘hey, come on, you bowed to that today and you should have really taken that on.’ The players have done a great job here, they really have. I think yous will probably write it being a really poor performance and many wouldn’t disagree with you, but I think there was part of that where we were not as bad as maybe we looked. I hope I’m right and I hope you are wrong, but I will get proof of that in a couple of weeks if that changes for me.
David Moyes has expressed his delight at adding an “experienced player with a good pedigree” after signing Emerson Palmieri from Chelsea. The Italian international has become the Hammers’ seventh summer signing after putting pen to paper on a four-year contract with the club, with a one-year option. He joins for an undisclosed fee from fellow Premier League club Chelsea. He will give Moyes another option at left-back to compete with Aaron Cresswell and Arthur Masuaku, with the West Ham boss speaking of how pleased he is to add more proven Premier League, European and international experience to his squad.
David Moyes said: “We are very pleased to welcome Emerson to West Ham United. He is an experienced player with a good pedigree, who has enjoyed great success at both club and international level in recent years. He will give us strong competition in defensive areas and brings a winning mentality that we are looking to build here at West Ham. We look forward to working with Emerson and wish him all the very best in his career with us.”
Meanwhile, the 28-year-old has spoken about how much he is relishing the challenge at West Ham, with the Italian international stating that he is “very happy” to be at the club after swapping west London for east London.
Emerson Palmieri said: “It’s a big challenge for me. It’s a big team, so I’m very happy to be here, and I’m ready. Personally, since the first day I arrived here in England, I always saw the big clubs, and I always watched the big games, and I knew the history about West Ham. The history is so, so big for this team and so when I knew about the interest for sure I said ‘Yes, let’s go, I want to go there’ and I’m here now! I can’t wait to get started in a West Ham shirt.”
West Ham United boss David Moyes has told his summer signings that unless they adapt to the Premier League quickly, they are at risk of having to wait for their chance. Asked about his new recruits, Moyes has said that unless they are quick to make an impact, he will have to stick with the players he had before the window opened until the new arrivals are deemed ready enough for regular chances.
David Moyes said: “I think it’s how quickly the new players integrate into the training and get used to it. If they don’t get used to the Premier League quickly then we have to keep going with players we’ve had, which at the moment looks like we could do with some freshening ourselves up. If they integrate very quickly and they can make an impact in the Premier League, then we will get them in right away. At the moment, we are seeing flashes of it, I’m not seeing wholehearted things to make me go ‘yes, they are ready to start.’ I probably wouldn’t have started Thilo if I felt as if we’d maybe been in a better place and maybe if I had some other centre halves available, I wouldn’t have started him.”
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