David Moyes is keen to ensure West Ham United continue to build momentum at home when they face Newcastle United on Wednesday evening.
Sunday's 1-0 victory against Southampton extended their unbeaten run on home turf to a sixth game in all competitions, with the Hammers taking eleven points from their five Premier League matches in E20 over that period.
Those home successes have been vital to keeping the team's head above water in the first few months of 2023 and now the manager's focus is on leading the Irons away from the bottom end of the table.
Newcastle, who currently sit in third place, are sure to test that form to the maximum, but Moyes believes his team are up to the task.
The players have done what I expected [in these crunch games so far]....
We have big characters and good players and they have done exactly what we wanted. But now we need to get moving and get a bit higher up and be positive in every game we go into.
It was a really important victory against Southampton and puts us into a position where now it is up to us to try and stay away from the bottom end of the league.
We treat every game as a must-win game, whether it was last season when we were at the top end of the league, or this season when we’re trying to get away from the bottom end.
Obviously we’ve not been in a strong position and getting out of trouble is really important. The players know and understand the position we’re in; know and understand the job we have to do, and obviously the Club has been in this position several times before.
I’m not saying that gives you any greater experience or any greater understanding of doing it, but I think it tells you we have to find ways of winning and in the last couple of games we’ve been able to do that.
I look at the form of Miguel Almirón and Joelinton, who have been at [Newcastle] a long time.
Since Eddie Howe has come in, they have been playing really well. And so, I think it does take time of players time to settle in. You get a bit of momentum, and it improves your confidence and your form. Newcastle have certainly done that. For the last two or three years, we have been doing that as well. We have had some new signings who have done really well and hopefully we can do that again.
Paquetá is a really good player.
Newcastle have a really good player in Bruno Guimarães as well. But Lucas has improved as he has gone along, but it has not been his ability, [as] it just takes people a little bit of time to get used to it. We are still looking for more creativity, things that lead to goals or chances and hopefully we can add that to his already good performances.
It makes me smile [that the league is so competitive].
Because I see how well Brighton are doing and Brentford and Fulham are doing. And in the last couple of years, we have been right amongst the top teams. Everybody is having a real go and I don’t think there is any guarantee that because you do well one season it doesn't mean you are going to do well in the next season.
There are a couple of clubs in our position maybe, so I do think it is a very competitive Premier League and it will be very difficult how it we work out next year because a lot of the teams we look to improve.
Guimarães is one player I’ve mentioned, but I think they’ve got a lot of players.
Almirón or Joelinton, how they’ve changed, and the players they’ve brought in. The two centre-halves too, they don’t concede many goals, so there are a lot of good things about them.
People were talking about us in that way a year ago or maybe a bit longer and I know what it’s like, it’s good. You have to try and build on it and keep it going, and it’ll be interesting to see how Newcastle do it in the years to come.
I think Newcastle have been pretty good for most of the season, I really do, I don’t think they’ve had a spell where they’ve fallen off it. I know they had a couple of games where they didn’t get the results, but look, we’ve got to be ready and we know we’re in for a big game.
It’s really important for us going forward that we keep Nayef and Kurt fit and we keep them playing together as much as we can.
It’s like anything else, we have to make sure they get to know each other. They’ve not had as much work together, even with the international breaks, Nayef was away with Morocoo, so we’ve not had many periods where we’ve had days and days of work where we could get them used to each other.
But they’re both very good players, they’re international players and it’s really important that we keep them together and playing well.
