David Moyes is anticipating another big game for West Ham United as his side prepare to meet Leeds United.
The Hammers make the trip north to Elland Road looking to end a run of five top-flight defeats in a row, with the available three points enough to keep the side out of the bottom three in the Premier League.
Despite the Irons winning four of their last five against the Peacocks, manager Moyes knows nothing can be taken for granted in Wednesday’s match as 14th play 17th, with only five points separating the bottom seven in the top division.
Speaking to the assembled media at his pre-match press conference, Moyes discussed the importance of Wednesday’s fixture, the challenges of scoring goals in the Premier League, and return of Mark Noble to the Club as Sporting Director – with the former captain starting in his new role on Tuesday.
This is the same as any other game in that you get three points for it.
But the importance of this game is really big. We know that but it was the same when we played Brentford, or Arsenal, or even Leicester City and Crystal Palace before the break.
If you understand the Red Bull model, then you’ll understand Jesse Marsch.
The way they play, and what he’s done. He’s done it very well and he’s implementing it very well at Leeds. It’s something that might take him a bit of time but he’s just beginning to get a grip of it. He’s had about six months in the Premier League and I think he’s starting to get used to it.
It’d be really good to get a third straight win at Elland Road.
The idea is to go there and be positive and play as well as we did last week, if we can do. We need to cut out a couple of mistakes and hopefully take the chances when they drop to us.
I think the West Ham United supporters have been incredibly supportive.
I think they see what’s go on here in the last three years and I think they are desperate for us to do well, and their manager to do well.
I’m feeling really good. I’ve got great support from the board. The board have been right behind me, which has been really good because you can put yourself under pressure a little bit. But they’ve been very supportive and they’ve been backing me.
We’re not at the half-way point of the season yet.
The way it’s worked out this year, sometimes we feel that we’ve got there, but we’re not half-way through the season yet. We have to buck up and do better and play better. We have to find a way of winning games.
I’ve come in in this position twice before, and we did a very good job, but I don’t think we’re in that position again because we’ve got a very good team. I think we’ve got a better team now than we’ve ever had.
We can get more out of Gianluca Scamacca, and we will.
I’ve said a few times that it takes some players a bit of time to settle into the Premier League. He’s a young centre-forward, who has come in from Italy, and we think he has a big future. He has so many good attributes but it can take time sometimes. He’s had a couple of injuries and it might just take him a little longer to get used to this league.
I remember the last two years.
Everyone was saying ‘you need another striker, a back-up to Michail Antonio’, and we had a list of strikers that we didn’t get for different reasons. But I think finding top strikers is very hard. There are an awful lot of them in a group that haven’t hit the heights that everyone expected, and I think finding really good centre-forward at the moment is really difficult.
We moved Marko Arnautovic to become a centre-forward, and we moved Michail Antonio to become a centre-forward, so if you’re looking at centre-forwards who have stepped up then there’s not been huge amounts.
We can all name Harry Kane or Gabriel Jesus, but there are a lot of new players coming in who need to get used to the Premier League, and become aware of how it works.
It's great that Mark Noble is here for West Ham United.
He’s been someone who has given his whole career to this one Club and he’s back in now, and we’ve got to remember now that he’s in a new job and training up as a Sporting Director. It’s great to have him around, for his personality and for what he brings to the football club.
