West Ham manager David Moyes had admitted that he has been impressed so far from what he has seen of summer recruit Nikola Vlasic ahead of their Europa League opener against Dinamo Zagreb. Vlasic joined the club in the summer transfer window that has just passed by for a fee in the region of £25.7million. He featured from the bench in the 0-0 draw away to Southampton in the Hammers’ most recent Premier League encounter and the creative player could be in line to face the Croatian-based team if Moyes’ comments are anything to go by. Speaking ahead of the Europa League opener in the pre-match press conference,
David Moyes said: “We’ve been really impressed by Niko. His attitude as a professional is first-class. We like him. We watched him a lot at CSKA Moscow and in the Euros. We see a young player still developing, but one who already has a lot of experience and caps for Croatia. He can play several roles for us which is important, but we also want to give him the chance to adapt and adjust. He’s only been really impressive since he’s been at the club and we’re really hopeful that he’ll turn into a really good player for us.”
The Croatian international was one of five new recruits that were brought into the club in the most recent transfer window as the club laid out around £67million to help strengthen what looked to be a thin squad in regards to depth.
David Moyes said: “I brought them into the club because I knew they would come into an unbelievable dressing room and would have no problems settling in. I feel as if we’ve made additions which can actually affect the first team. I think the boys who played last year did an incredible job to get us here, so they need a little bit of an opportunity to show that, but I’ve not brought in players just to stand back and watch. We’ve got six games in this tournament so as it goes on I’ll know better by the end of it, but probably in the early days I’ll be trying to find the right team at the right time to fit in with the Premier League fixtures we’ve got as well.”
All attention now is on the team news to see if the manager’s positive words on the former Everton player translate into a first West Ham start.
