Ahead of the first leg of West Ham United’s UEFA Europa Conference League semi-final against AZ Alkmaar, Thilo Kehrer has The Last Word…
Ahead of Thursday’s match, we can take a lot of confidence from the weekend. The Manchester United game was a really good showing from everyone. Everything was great from performance, the team, the spirit, the fans and the atmosphere, everything came together to get the win.
I feel like Manchester United was our best performance of the season and the last game and the run we had our performances were getting up in the last month or so. I was very happy us players, we had goosebumps because of the energy of the teams and the fans on Sunday night.
I felt calm and composed and, in the game, I felt confident. And that showed in my performance. I think it was probably my best showing in a West Ham shirt so far. And performances such as Sunday are what I know I am capable of. And I have a clear goal to try and show that consistently in all the games.
I learnt quickly that the intensity and physicality is very different between Ligue 1 and the Premier League. The competitiveness of all the teams is so close and you just have to be at the top of your game, for every game. It has taken some time but I feel settled in now.
When I arrived, I was playing straight away. I had to play and adapt. It happened very quickly but I am happy now because I know there were some games where I did not play as well as I can – and that can be because of different things – but the important thing is what I took out of them and what I learnt in order to progress.
We feel that and even though the results were not what we wanted in the last few games prior to Manchester United, we knew the performance was getting better, so we stayed confident in that. And that gave us the result.
And so, I think we have found more confidence and more stability in ourselves and in our game. Of course, the win has given us a lot of confidence heading into the match against AZ Alkmaar. We had some good games, and we had some bad games, but we seem to be picking up at the right time.
The end of the season is when the results are most important. It’s where you win trophies, or you stay in the league. So, it is very good timing for us to have found some form and some better performances right now.
For us, to have this energy heading into Thursday’s match is just the right time. And we want to keep going that way. We feel as if we have made a big step towards Premier League safety following the win over Manchester United but now it is time to focus on the UEFA Conference League.
AZ Alkmaar will be a tough test. No team gets to a semi-final unless they are a good team and full of good players, so we know we will have to be at our best.
The UEFA Conference League is a competition we are happy to be in and happy to compete in. We are aware of the privilege of playing in the competition. And now we are in the semi-final, we want to go all the way to the end.
