Declan Rice
West Ham manager David Moyes has insisted that despite his team’s current position a top-ten finish for his club would not represent an anti-climax to the season for the Hammers.
Declan Rice said “We’re not letting this slip. We want to try and go as high as possible and we’re going to give it everything we’ve got from now until the end of the season”
Tomas Soucek said “I hope we do very well in these three difficult matches [against Leeds, Manchester United and Arsenal] and then we will go into the international break with belief and it will set us up for the last step.”
David Moyes is thrilled his players are doing his talking for him.
David Moyes said “It is telling me a little bit about their mentality and what they see and obviously we pass on our thoughts and what we think we have to do but they are driving it on,”.
The boss is aware of the challenge West Ham are facing but assured the club’s supporters he and the players will do all they can to make it happen.
David Moyes said “We are going to try, I can’t promise them that [Champions League qualification] is on but I can tell them that we will try and do what we can. I have to say we are big outsiders for the Champions League because there are lots of teams there. But if you watch the racing at Cheltenham quite often the outsiders come good, so I am hoping we are one of those big outsiders and we can shock a few. I don’t think we are kidding anybody on when we are in a position to be in that place, but with the resilience, the commitment, the determination the players have shown nothing would surprise me with them, it really wouldn’t. At the start, if you’d have given me top ten I would have said, ‘thank you very much’, it would be a good season for West Ham and it would show that progress had been made. We don’t want to lose the fact that making progress is important. The position we are in at the moment is an incredible position to be in and I hope we can stay in it and we will do everything we can to stay there.”
Just 12 months ago West Ham were in the midst of a relegation battle so to be sitting two points above champions Liverpool with a game in hand with only 12 matches left in the season is a remarkable achievement for the club. One that Cresswell is all too aware of
Aaron Cresswell said “To be in this position is massive for us, but we don’t want to be happy with where we are. If we can give everything we’ve got between now and the end of the season, I don’t see any reason why we certainly can’t be up there and that’s what we’re aiming for.
Moyes mentioned the mentality of his players and put part of this down to signing players like Soucek and his fellow Czech Republic international Vladimir Coufal who are “used to winning week in week out”. The manager said that they have brought a winning mentality to the club that is driving their teammates on. That mentality is one shared by the boss who admitted to a “sense of disappointment when we dropped out [of the top four] on Thursday night, so that gives an idea of how we feel about it.”
David Moyes said ” We are tough and we know that when you get an opportunity you need to try and take it but I think if we didn’t make it we would not beat ourselves up about it. What we will try and do is give everything we can do give try and be amongst it.”
Going into the weekend’s fixture West Ham are currently in sixth spot two points behind Chelsea in fourth but with a game in hand on Thomas Tuchel’s team. In recent days Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek and Aaron Cresswell have all spoken about the club’s ambitions to finish as high up the table as possible but one thing all three have in common is they do not mentions the words ‘Champions League.’ West Ham’s three ever-presents this season are part of a clear leadership group at the London Stadium. along with the vocal Mark Noble, Lukasz Fabianski and Craig Dawson and have all been reading from the same script lately.
If West ham can get back to winning ways on Monday night they will very much be back amongst it. No matter how much Moyes plays it down if the club were to miss out on European football it would very much feel like an anti-climax for the fans after a terrific campaign to date.
