David Moyes
West Ham manager David Moyes admitted his ultimate ambition with the Hammers is to be regularly challenging for a top four finish. Under Moyes’ watch West Ham went from a relegation threatened team to one on the cusp of Champions League football last season, only missing out by two points at the back end of the campaign. The Hammers secured Europa League group stage football for the first time and have made a fine start to life in the competition with back-to-back 2-0 wins in their opening matches. Speaking ahead of the trip to Goodison Park to take on an Everton team that also have European ambitions Moyes outlined where he wants to take this West Ham team.
David Moyes said: “My plan is to challenge the top four. I’m hoping I can challenge the top four and maybe catch one, maybe topple one. That’s what I want to do. That’s what I’ve let the players know in terms of where I’m aiming. I can only speak for Everton as an ex-manager. I can’t speak for Rafa [Benitez]. But Everton is a big club, with big traditions and they’ve challenged the top four, certainly in my time there. There was a constant challenge. It was really difficult to break in, but we did it on one occasion. So I think Rafa might be thinking the exact same as I did at the time, he may be thinking even more.”
Moyes made it clear that he believes his ambitions for West Ham are realistic and he has let his players know what he expects of them.
David Moyes said: “I’ve thought that West Ham are the team that does that [aims high]. I’ve been pushing the players and the staff here to say: ‘No, we have to challenge the top four. That’s the job and we have to try and push them as hard as we can.’ Well, we finished three [sic] points I think behind Chelsea last year in the race for a Champions League spot. So we have to try and find that extra few points as the season goes on so that we can make it.”
Despite Moyes’ lofty ambitions West Ham have only won one Premier League match since August, but the manager is not concerned about that record because of the performance his team have put in.
David Moyes added: “To be fair we’ve come very close to getting results, it’s not as if we’ve been way off them and it is not as if we are losing badly in any way. It is not as if they have been really poor performances, there has been none of that. In fact, I have seen more of the opposite, I have seen us closer to winning. Yes, we want to get back and we want to get on a run winning. The Premier League is really important to us.”
