David Moyes was delighted to guide West Ham United to a second consecutive European quarter-final following a comprehensive 4-0 second-leg win over AEK Larnaca.
Gianluca Scamacca’s first-half strike, followed by Jarrod Bowen’s quickfire double at the start of the second half and Divin Mubama’s first finish in Claret and Blue secured an excellent win at London Stadium on Thursday evening.
The round of 16 second leg success means the Hammers progressed to the last-eight of the UEFA Europa Conference League after a 6-0 aggregate win over their Cypriot opponents, and manager Moyes was pleased with multiple facets of the victory.
The boss was thrilled to see Scamacca find the net once again, after a period out of the side, as well as 18-year-old Mubama’s maiden goal for the Club.
With Bowen’s two goals securing his status as the team’s all-time leading scorer in Europe, and a first-team debut for Levi Laing too, there was plenty to celebrate on top of another place in a European quarter-final…
We knew that if AEK Larnaca got a goal, it could suddenly be a tense evening.
I thought we started the game well but we didn’t get the goal right away, which I thought we should have. I thought our play was going to merit a goal. But in the end we got one and that settle things down.
I’m really pleased Gianluca got a goal.
Goalscorers take the goals any way they can get them and I think that one might have gone through the goalkeeper’s legs, so it was a great start for us.
I was pleased with bits of Gianluca’s all-round play. There are bits that I’m looking to get better but, overall, I’m pleased for him getting the goal. Goals give you confidence and getting him back out there was really good as well.
I actually felt disappointed with Larnaca’s red card.
I felt the game was better with eleven versus eleven and it meant we had to keep doing our job. They had a chance for a goal [before Gus was shown a red card], which was offside, but it changed the game.
To be fair, we came out in the second half and blew them away, which made it easy to make changes early and get a couple of the lads on the pitch.
I’m pleased for the Academy boys.
It’s not easy to get chances to play for a Premier League time now. The games are so difficult and tense. Even in this game, if we’d won by a couple more goals in Cyprus, we could have thought about starting them, but until we got the result safe and clear we couldn’t do so.
But I’m pleased the boys got their chance and I’m pleased Divin got his goal. I’m pleased that Levi and Freddie Potts got some minutes and I hope it inspires some of the other boys in the Academy, and shows their parents that if you come to West Ham and you’re good enough, you’ll get chances.
The biggest thing for me is it’s two European quarter-finals back-to-back.
It’s nice when you say it and the next thing to do is see if we can make it two European semi-finals back-to-back. We’ll find out on Friday about the draw and the European football has been really positive.
It’s really good for us and it’s given us a chance to make sure the squad gets minutes. We’ll need to play better, we know that, if we’re to go all the way, but we’re pleased about tonight.
We’re in a position where we can go all the way.
But we need to make progress as a team and we need to look to play better and be more assured in what we’re doing at times. But we’ve played tonight with a few players out of the team and we know, when it gets down to the crunch, they could be playing for us. But I’m pleased with tonight. There were some good performances.
We’ve got a few days off for the players now.
We don’t play now until Southampton on Sunday 2 April so we’ve given the players a bit of time off and then we’ll need to get ready for an incredible, last patch of the season. We’ve got nine games in April coming up and then we’ve got May. We’ve got big games coming up and we need to be ready.
