David Moyes is relishing Monday’s Premier League test against AFC Bournemouth.
West Ham United will take on a Cherries side currently coached by former Hammer Gary O’Neil at London Stadium, with the visitors enjoying a run of just one defeat in their last seven league matches.
Just one position, and two points, separate Bournemouth and the Irons in the Premier League table, and the manager is ready for another tricky top-flight encounter for his side.
Despite defeat last time out at Liverpool, the manager took a large number of positives from the trip to Anfield, as he told his pre-match press conference on Friday…
I thought we played well against Liverpool.
Even in the periods we perhaps didn’t play so well, and I’ve had the chance to look at it, we still did well. Liverpool are a good team as well and we can’t be expected to completely dominate a team like Liverpool, but I thought we gave them a good game. We put up a decent showing.
I think we were impressive in midweek. I think we’re back to our levels and we’re close to showing exactly what we can do. Of course, you’re always looking for things to be better, and our finishing could probably be better, but we’ll be looking to get a positive result on Monday.
When I came back in, we beat Bournemouth 4-0 in my first game back.
At that time, every point was going to be crucial for us. It was a great start and it was probably a big boost that the players needed.
I have to say that what the players have done in the last three years has been remarkable. From that group of players being near relegation, to being a group that has been challenging towards the UEFA Champions League [places] for the last two years, that says a lot about how they’ve changed and the character they have.
Gary O’Neil has done a very good job at Bournemouth.
I’ve got to say that Scott Parker did a brilliant job at Bournemouth as well. He got them up and back in the Premier League, which was a great achievement. Gary has picked it up and taken it on a little bit as well, so he’s done very well.
It’s not easy to go on these sorts of runs in the Premier League, with a new club, but they’ve had a really good start to the season.
We need to get a better goal tally than we have at the moment.
I can’t do a lot between now and Monday but what we can do is make the players aware that we feel we’re missing too many opportunities. We need more goals across every area of the pitch. We’ve spread the goals around over the last couple of years. We went a long time last year when we didn’t score many goals but we’ve got to get goals all around the team.
I’m not surprised by how tight the Premier League table is looking.
I think there is very little between the teams in the Premier League. With the teams at the bottom, there are some very good sides down there and that could change very quickly. I think the tightness in the league is not a surprise.
There are three or four very good, exceptional teams, but there is not much between the rest of the sides. I think every game, no matter who you’re playing, comes with a huge degree of difficulty. We’ll go into the game knowing it’s a pretty important home game for us. Our home form has been pretty good and we want to try and keep that going.
I’m really disappointed for Steven Gerrard.
We want to get young, new managers in and around the Premier League. We’ve seen it with him and we’ve seen it with Frank Lampard too. We’ve got some other managers too that have come into it as well, so it’s disappointing to see him lose his job.
Steven will be fine. He was an incredible player, but he’s also shown he is a very good manager as well. I’ve got no doubt he will go on to manage again and he will go on to be a success elsewhere.
