David Moyes puffed out his cheeks and allowed himself a smile as he began his post-match interview with West Ham TV.
The manager had just gone through every emotion during a draining, breathless Premier League fixture that saw his West Ham United team fall two goals down to leaders Arsenal inside ten minutes, get one back, see the Gunners miss a penalty, equalise and then create opportunities to win it late on.
In truth, the Irons were more than happy to secure a point from a game that, early on, looked to have got away from them.
The comeback means Moyes’ side have now lost just one of their last eight games in all competitions, and taken eight points from the last five in the Premier League.
The results might have been there, but on Sunday the performance was there too, and the manager wants his players to take the confidence drawn from it into their remaining eight league matches and Thursday’s UEFA Europa Conference League second leg with KAA Gent at London Stadium.
The team were terrific.
We lost two goals in the opening ten minutes, but I actually didn’t think we played that badly and I think that reflected in the supporters – they were great today, they kept with us, never gave up and I think that’s because they saw how the players started.
Yes, we went 2-0 down, with maybe a bit of not tracking players, or not concentrating and blocking crosses, but I actually thought we started the game quite well.
We tried to put Arsenal under pressure, which everyone know at the moment is difficult, but overall the players stuck at it and showed the character, resilience and toughness which was required.
The three midfield players today – Declan, Lucas, Tomáš – did a brilliant job.
They had to chase the ball for a lot of the time, nicking it at moments and setting us on the way for counter attacks.
Today was much better than it’s been, so I have to give them all credit for that. For our first goal, Dec wins it back and it gives us a chance from a penalty kick in the end, so we’re pleased for that.
If they had gone 3-1 up I have to say it would have been really hard to get back in the game.
But the penalty miss breathed life into us and I think everybody thought we might still be in with a chance here.
It’s always small margins in football, sometimes you get a little bit going for you, sometimes you don’t and a lot of the season we’ve not as much go for us as I’d like. Maybe today them missing a penalty was a big bit of good fortune.
Jarrod in recent weeks has been the one providing assists for us.
He made the goal last week against Fulham and he made the one in midweek at Gent too. He seems to be the one who’s making chances, what we’ve missed a bit is his goals, but today he gets on the end of one and finishes it, which is great.
It’s what he wants to do and hopefully if he can add another half-a-dozen goals between now and the end of the season it would be great.
We always want good characters – they’ve got the character but maybe at times this year we haven’t stood up and shown it. Today we stood up and showed what they’ve got.
They showed their resilience, they showed that we can’t give up here and let this go. You have to remember that a few of them played on Thursday night, while Arsenal had a full week to prepare.
Lots of those things were against us, especially when we went 2-0 down, so for the players to get back was a brilliant, brilliant result.
I’ve always thought we are a side who can compete against anybody.
The league position would not necessarily suggest that but I do believe that.
We’ve not scored enough goals, but we’ve been competitive against lots of teams and we’re going to have to be because we still have Liverpool and Manchester United to play here as well.
