David Moyes hailed a professional job well done after West Ham United defeated Derby County 2-0 in the Emirates FA Cup fourth round.
The Hammers scored early in each half through Jarrod Bowen and Michail Antonio to see off a spirited Rams side at Pride Park Stadium.
The EFL League One promotion-chasers had not lost inside 90 minutes in 19 matches and came into Monday’s game on a run of six straight wins, but aside from a few half-chances, failed to seriously trouble Alphonse Areola in the West Ham goal.
At the other end, Bowen and Antonio both found the net to secure another welcome victory and clean sheet, following the Premier League win over Everton at London Stadium by the same scoreline nine days previously.
Bowen and Ben Johnson were denied further goals by Derby goalkeeper Joe Wildsmith as the visitors saw the game out professionally, while Moyes was able to give welcome minutes to teenage forward Divin Mubama, who has been in fine form for the U21s and U18s this season.
The win set up a fifth-round trip to Moyes’ former club Manchester United – the third straight season West Ham have been drawn away to the Red Devils in a cup competition following an FA Cup fifth-round defeat in 2020/21 and EFL Cup third-round victory at Old Trafford last term – and the manager is hoping his players can rise to the occasion next month and secure a place in the quarter-finals
We have done the job and we got through.
I didn’t think we played as well as I’d have liked us to play in the whole game but, look, first half wasn’t so good but we got a goal in front and we played a bit better in the second half and got the goal early which gave us a good chance.
So, look, job done. Getting through in the cup is always important and we did it relatively well.
Every time I mention Kidderminster, I nearly take a deep breath because you can quickly go out of the cup, it doesn’t matter who you play.
But this was a difficult game because they’ve gone 16 games unbeaten. I don’t really care what league you’re in because the big thing is you get momentum or you’re playing well.
You’ve seen that with Wrexham and you’ve seen it in other cup games too over the years when they become difficult.
In the end, we got the goals and Jarrod got another goal which helps and Micky got another goal tonight and, in the main, we probably did a pretty good professional job on them.
I think the biggest thing for me is that I want to have a squad of players who are all driven to play and we can put any one of them into the team.
We looked tonight to get Flynn Downes, Ben Johnson and Pablo Fornals minutes as they’ve maybe not has as many as I’d like to have given them.
But they have to show by their performance that they can step in and the other thing, because we’ve got European football coming up, I want to see which of the boys can play on a Thursday and a Sunday when we’re going to play hugely important Premier League games.
I wanted to get through in the cup and we did. I want to give the supporters something to shout about, whether it’s a European final or a cup final at Wembley. One of them would be great.
I’ve got to say I thought that was the best the away support has been. I thought it was brilliant away support tonight.
Thanks to all the ones who travelled up. It makes a big difference, it really does, and we’re going to need them in the games to come.
We’re looking forward to it. We’ve got to start getting the league points which hopefully we can build on it. We’ve had three wins out of four in all competitions and we’re starting to get back on a little bit of a run, so let’s hope we can keep it going.
