David Moyes is targeting a place in the UEFA Europa Conference League round of 16 following West Ham United’s 3-2 Group B win at Silkeborg IF.
The Hammers were made to work hard in Denmark, but ultimately edged out talented opposition by the odd goal in five thanks to Manuel Lanzini’s penalty, Gianluca Scamacca’s unstoppable 20-yard strike and Craig Dawson’s thumping header.
Those three goals bisected two from Silkeborg, who took the lead at the end of their first attack through Kasper Kusk’s first-time finish, then set up a nervy finish when Søren Tengstedt fired home from close-range following a counter.
While he was pleased to see his team come from a goal down to win for the second Group B tie in a row, following last week’s 3-1 win over Romanians FCSB, the manager was not happy with his team’s management of the game in the second half in particular.
But while there are plenty of elements of the game that the Scot wants his players to work on, he was also content to see them go top of their group – as they did in the UEFA Europa League last season – and seemingly on course to reach the knockout stages for a second year in a row.
I’ve got to say, the last 30 minutes, we were really poor with our decision making and choices of passes, and a lot of it showed up greatly probably in the front area where we had big opportunities to score again and we didn't take care them.
And then I actually thought it started to drift in at the back where we had a couple of poor decisions defensively as well.
But, look, for other parts of the game we were we were okay. We played against a team who are very good at building up, their style is very good and passing is very good, and their rotation with it was good.
But we've done a decent job for most of the game, and we had long periods when we were in control, but I’d have liked us to have got the fourth goal to put it to bed.
Even at half-time, I thought they had they had showed some good things and that, if we weren't careful, we could be in trouble. We were in control for most of it, and was only in the last ten minutes that it happened.
I’m not happy that we're going behind or that we’re conceding a goal or tonight two goals to that point.
But, look, we're trying to get people back, we're trying to give people minutes to try and get them fit for the Premier League. We're using this competition in the early rounds to try give boys a game, see how we can do things together, so there is going to be a little bit of up and down but it was a game which, in the main, we were controlling. And I think we abused it in the second half by not getting the fourth or fifth goal.
It would be a boost if we could keep winning and win the group with a game to spare like we did last season and we'll try and do that.
But, again, I think what will happen is the Premier League is going to take a huge part of us.
I think the squad is much better, but we’ve been so short of defenders in the last month. In the first three Premier League games this season, we only had one centre-half.
So, we're just beginning to get some people back and we're hoping that can make us stronger later on. But, meanwhile, our focus is on the Premier League and then again we're back in this competition in a few weeks’ time again.
Cressy reached 300 appearances for West Ham and he’s been great.
I actually think he's become a better player as he’s got older. He’s reading the game much better these days and is a real sort of team player as well.
He's a big help to the players in the dressing room and I think, overall, his performances over the last few years have been very good.
I'm glad to hear that that's 300 games for him and I wish him well in getting some more.
We are staying in Denmark overnight and will train here on Friday before flying home.
I've said it in one of our press conferences that our other games last season were six o’clock kick-offs last year, which was great because it meant that we could try and get back to the UK roughly around about midnight. But obviously when you're playing this late, it makes it really difficult.
So, I don't want to keep talking about it, but Thursday/Sunday football is a hard thing to do. We played a Saturday game a few weeks ago and it felt really strange, so Thursday/Sunday at the moment feels the norm.
