David Moyes has been speaking ahead of the first leg of our UEFA Europa Conference League semi-final against AZ Alkmaar.
The Hammers head into Thursday’s tie with a twelve-game unbeaten run in the competition to protect, having won eleven matches and drawn just one fixture in Europe this season.
Buoyed by Sunday’s win over Manchester United, the Hammers head into their second successive European semi-final in good spirits and hope to reach a European final for the first time since 1976.
Speaking at Rush Green Training Ground, the Gaffer spoke about the task presented by AZ Alkmaar, building on the win over Manchester United, and what it would mean to reach the first continental final of his managerial career.
I don’t know if the result over Manchester United will work to our advantage.
But we hope that the result will give us the confidence that we have been missing at times this season. It was a great performance and the boys played ever so well and I am hoping we can back it up again.
I think we can breathe a little bit easier because of the great result we had at the weekend.
And let’s be fair, our results in Europe have been really good, so we have to try and keep that going. And if we do that then we have a great chance of reaching the final. But again, we have an opponent who we will in no way underestimate at all.
I think to reach any final for any team is a big thing.
Everybody wants to try and reach the final and be successful and it is very difficult for any manager and any football club to be successful all the time. But we are trying. It was a great season for us last year to get to the semi-final. And we have done amazingly well to get to a semi-final and hopefully, we go one step further and make a final.
I wouldn’t say we are big favourites for this game.
I have a lot of respect for AZ Alkmaar and way they play and what they have got. I think they are having an amazing season and we have got a really tough opponent. I think any Dutch teams that you play are always good. I think they are always good footballing teams and well-coached, so it will be a tough game for us.
I knew a lot about AZ already.
I knew about the young players and the way they are building the club and the model that they follow. They have got a lot of exciting young players and they are following the model that a lot of clubs have gone which is towards the ‘Moneyball’ side of things, signing a lot of young players, which I really like. It is a great model if it suits your club, but they have a lot of good, talented players. Their young players are doing really well, they have just won the UEFA Youth League, and are building for the future. But they also have a lot of talented players right now.
I remember Sir Alex Ferguson always said that this time of the year was when you had to be at your best.
Because games are very important. It could be the semi-finals or finals or league games that you have to win. So, I think having your best form at this stage of the season, is a good thing. I do think that we are playing some of our best stuff – I think still think we can get much better and I am hoping we can show that in the coming weeks.
I think I am beginning to see what we signed, which was full internationals from different countries.
Boys who have proved they had talent and showed their quality in different leagues.But coming to the Premier League can make it very difficult to settle. But it is not just us I can think of many clubs who have had difficulty settling players. But I think that many of them are settling in and thankfully we are beginning to do a lot better.
It is certainly made me realise that every tournament you play in, it is difficult to reach a semi-final or a final.
Certainly, here, to win any of the major trophies with the quality of the teams and the standard of the football teams that you have got to beat, so I think what we did last season, and the teams we had to beat to reach the semi-final, [was a big achievement].
This season has been an amazing achievement to reach the last four.
To get to this stage is great for us. You can’t take European football for granted because there are so many teams in the Premier League trying to get into this position. And with us finishing sixth and seventh over the past two seasons, that is no mean feat. And this year, we can only get to Europe by winning the Conference League, so it will be great if we could go that again.
I look at [AZ Alkmaar] fielding the youngest average XI in the tournament as a good thing.
It’s a great model if you can get it to work. I think that because the team is winning and doing well and has some momentum in a really good division you know you are going to come up against a team with young hungry players, who are playing really well at the moment.
And we will have to use our experience – which will be more than AZ’s – but that doesn’t always get you the results, but we have to try and use it and give ourselves the best advantage we can.
I have always said I want to get to the final and that I want to take this Club to a final.
But when you get to the semi-final you have got another opponent and you have to show respect and give them that respect because you have to be a good side to get to a semi-final. AZ have shown how good they are and have beaten some top sides on their journey. They had to beat Anderlecht and Lazio to get here – so, I don’t think they’re coming to us will be a big fear for them. But do I want to get to a final? 100 per cent. And I will do everything I can to get us there.
I think getting to a European final would be my greatest achievement as a manager.
I have been fortunate to get to UEFA Champions League quarter-finals with Manchester United and lost on penalty kicks in the UEFA Europa League with Everton and last year I was in a semi-final with West Ham. And this year, we are in a semi-final again. I want to try and take it one step further but it would be easier to say so if we got to the final.
If I refer back to the serial winner Jose Mourinho, who found winning this trophy so special for himself and his football Club.
And for me, then I am saying if ever I needed someone what it is like and how hard it is it would be Jose. And he treated this competition as if it was so important and there is no way I am treating it any less than that.
I think the last two years we have had two really successful years with West Ham.
And this year has been a little bit disappointing and obviously, we would have liked to have done better, but in this competition, we have been excellent.
I think that overall, the support I have had from the board has been great and when there was a lot of noise outside, they were incredibly supportive.
I think we have a lot of big players, who played in big games and big competitions.
And I think this is the sort of moment and we have been disappointed that we have not had more big occasions this season. But this is where you hope your big players stand up and show what they are capable of. If they showcase themselves and if we continue playing as well as we have done in some of the recent games then we give ourselves a chance.
I don’t know if we can use the defeat to Frankfurt last season as motivation, but I hope we can use it as a learning tool.
There are maybe bits we can learn from it and look back on how the game went as we were chasing the tie from minute one really. Hopefully, we can pick up and be better than that but overall, we played a really good opponent who went on to win that tournament.
I think we have learnt a lot but it starts from me – the leader – and how you control your emotions.
I got myself sent off in the second game which I didn’t think helped my team, but we were up against it at the time with ten men and we didn’t think that things had gone particularly well for us, so I still think that is something we need to control, and we need to do better.
We play in a league which probably has the most physical element to it than any other European competition, which is admired and respected in the world because of the speed of the game and the intensity.
All those things are very important in Premier League football. But when we get to games like this we are not quite sure of what we are going to get in terms of decision-making and how it is going to go. So, it is something we have to adapt too.
West Ham supporters that I bump into are all saying: ‘Wow’.
The number of people that we get coming to the game which is incredible for this league. And there are very few Clubs around Europe that could get anywhere close to that level of support. And it shows you how much it means, and we are fully aware of it.
I find that all the West Ham supporters are really buzzing about getting to a final. We were disappointed we couldn’t reach the final last year but we are hoping we can go one step further.
