David Moyes
What is the latest on Maxwel Cornet and could he be available on Sunday?
“Maxwel will not be available for the game. We think he’s got a small calf strain. I don’t think it’s as bad as maybe we first feared, but it will certainly keep him out for a few days. Hopefully he will be back next week, but we will see.
No other concerns from last night against Anderlecht?
“We’ve got a few knocks and niggles like everyone else and it would be very difficult sitting here the day after a game to say we haven’t got knocks and niggles, but hopefully we’ll be okay by the time we get round to Sunday’s game.”
How important was the win last night?
“I think it is really important because we want to do well in the group and we want to try and win the group if we can. At least, we want to qualify from the group and make sure we have European football after Christmas time again, and as well as that, we are trying to build some momentum, and that was a good result for us.”
Would early qualification give you the chance to perhaps let Declan Rice have a night or two off?
“Well he had last night off, and we don’t use him in all the games. I think the point is Declan played two games for England last week and we played a Premier League game as well. We are trying to look after him and get him in the best shape for West Ham, and there was an opportunity for me last night to keep him on the bench.”
How pleased are you with Gianluca Scamacca’s progress?
“I think he’s coming on very well. He’s 23, a young Italian striker playing for the first time in the Premier League and I think he’s coming along really well. Goals give you confidence and I think his form is getting better and I think his fitness is something that he knows there’s more to come from him. It is good when there is room for improvement, but there is good progress and I have to say, he’s doing a good job at the moment.”
Against Wolves, you had Michail Antonio, Pablo Fornals and Vladimir Coufal on the bench. What have the new signings done for the more established players?
“I think it has shown that we’ve got a stronger group of players, but getting them used to what we do, how we do it and really integrated takes time, but I feel like we are getting towards that now and there is a great spirit among the players inside the training ground. We want to build on that, get them used to each other, play well and they are doing a lot better at the moment.”
You had Flynn Downes in the team last night. Will performances like that bring him more into contention to play in the Premier League?
“I’ve had quite a few players from the Championship over my years in management. I can think of some really good ones who hardly played for the first few months and they take time to come through sometimes, I can think of a few like Joleon Lescott and Leighton Baines, but they came through and went on to become England internationals. Flynn did well last night and he is certainly beginning to improve.”
Aleksandar Mitrovic has been in good form for Fulham, but he may be a doubt for the game on Sunday. How different a challenge would it be to face Fulham without him?
“I can’t really speak about who may be a doubt or not, but talking about him at Fulham, he is a very good player, he has scored a lot of goals for Fulham. But I can’t really answer if he is a doubt or not.”
Can I ask for your thoughts on Marco Silva and the job he has done?
“I think he’s done a really good job. I’ve always thought he’s been a good manager. Sometimes a manager just needs to be at the right place at the right time, with the right club. I think to get Fulham out of the Championship and back into the Premier League, I think they’re doing a lot of good things, Fulham, building a new part of the stadium and Marco Silva is a very good manager.”
How big a factor is it for you being able to bring in that extra quality from the bench with the squad you have?
“I hope it is a big help for us. Last night was probably the biggest number of changes we have made in Europe for the last year or two, but I think we are beginning to get more players fit. Yes, we didn’t have [Nayef] Aguerd and Maxwel [Cornet] last night, but we are beginning to get a lot of players back and competition for places, and I always wanted to be able to make changes. Thursday to Sunday changes things dramatically, I was talking today, you don’t see as many changes in the Champions League going from a Tuesday or a Wednesday to a Saturday, but the Thursday to Sunday football has a different effect on the squad. You do need enough players in the squad to be able to make those changes.”
Have you got any headaches now then in terms of picking a team for Sunday?
“You always have headaches in this job, that’s for sure. You always have someone with a knock, or a niggle, or a cold, and you have to be ready for that. But we won’t be any different to other sides with that and we will be ready for that.”
If you were to make it three wins in eight days, how big would that be for momentum?
“I think it’s huge if we can continue to build that momentum. We want to try and get on a run of victories. Clean-sheets are always a good place to start and we want to build on everything we are doing at the moment. I can sense that we’re a little bit better at the moment. We’re beginning to see performances from Flynn Downes, Gianluca Scamacca and a lot of the players we’ve brought in, and we knew they could give us that. I thought our goalkeeper Alphonse Areola was fantastic last night as well. In the early games of the season we may have hit the bar or so, and we may have not got things right, but there are signs that things are getting better. The win against Wolves was important for us and then to go and win against Anderlecht. Winning away from home in Europe is never easy, so we can take real positives from that and we will try and build on that.”
Fulham started the season well, but they lost to Newcastle quite heavily last weekend. Does that make it a good time to face them?
“I think you have to look at the fact they had a player sent off after ten minutes I think against Newcastle. It would always be a difficult game against Newcastle with the form they are in at the moment, but I think Fulham have started the season really well and if they hadn’t been down to ten men, I think it might have been a slightly different outcome.”
What are the positive signs you are seeing from your players in the last couple of games, compared to earlier on in the season?
“I have seen some good signs early on, but we are trying to get back as a team to a more realistic, stable level of performance and I feel that we are beginning to get to those levels, individually and as a team.”
Is this team getting closer to the heights of the side from last season?
“I think we’re closer to it. Are we quite there yet? No. It will be a bit of an improvement to get to that. But we’re getting there. When we first took over two and a half years ago, we were third bottom in the league and that team wasn’t good enough to get us into the top six or seven. This team that we’re moulding together at the moment might take a little time to get to that position, but we’re getting there and working on it. We have got lots of talented players who we hope will show their worth in the coming weeks and months.”
Is there less pressure on you now after a couple of wins?
“No, just the same, you always have to try and win the next game in football. Winning is a philosophy and you have to try and find a way of getting results in football. We have had two good results, beating Wolves at home and then going away and winning at Anderlecht. Those wins have been good for us after the break. We hoped the players would have got themselves recharged and focused on what was ahead in that break, and I have to say they have. They are looking good in training, I am enjoying what I am seeing. Maybe in some games we could have scored more and that is the next target to get more goals and take more chances.”
How pleased are you with what Craig Dawson has done in recent weeks?
“This is what Craig Dawson can do and this is why he has been such a good player for us. He gives us a bit of steel, leadership, organisation and experience, and we have missed him. The opening three games of the season, we didn’t really have any centre-backs, maybe Kurt [Zouma] was the only one. So, there have been reasons why we didn’t start the season so well. Certainly not having Nayef [Aguerd] and Craig [Dawson] available in those early games, and Thilo [Kehrer] wasn’t in the building at that point, so there have been big changes since then. And good signs that things are getting better, I think Nayef is getting closer, we have spoken about Craig and Thilo has made a really good impact too so far.”
One of the players who has left you is Issa Diop? How keen was he to go?
“We liked Issa [Diop] a lot, we would have liked Issa to stay. At that time, we were having difficulties with centre-halves. We liked Issa a lot, but his choice was he wanted to go and play more, and in the end we granted it. It was a difficult one for us, because we were really short of defenders at that moment.”
There is a theory that October perhaps looks easier for you on paper. Yes you have Liverpool and Manchester United, but with Fulham, Southampton and Bournemouth, could it be that you are in a much happier position come the end of the month?
“I agree with the last bit, I hope I am happier at the end of it. But if you are saying there is a team you can just turn up and play and walk all over, I do not see that, not that I ever have. I think the Premier League is really unpredictable at the moment. All the teams at the bottom of the league could easily be in different positions, look at how Leicester City won on Monday night. I think it is easy to make assumptions when it is not one of the big sides, but there are so many sides in the Premier League who are doing a good job and making them very hard to play against.”
