West Ham United's quest to reach the UEFA Europa Conference League final is half-done after Thursday's 2-1 first leg win over AZ Alkmaar.
While manager David Moyes was pleased with his side's determination and tenacity in fighting back to claim a deserved victory, the boss knows that his team are in for a battle in the second leg in the Netherlands next Thursday.
The Irons got a taste for the quality Pascal Jansen's team possesses at London Stadium as the visitors took a first-half lead through Tijjani Reijnders' finish.
The Hammers continued to create chances, however, and made the most of their opportunities when Mathew Ryan fouled Jarrod Bowen in the penalty area. Saïd Benrahma stepped up and powered home from 12 yards.
The comeback continued on 76 minutes when Michail Antonio was in the right place to poke in West Ham's second, after Nayef Aguerd's header was cleared off the Alkmaar line.
Speaking to West Ham TV, Moyes praised his team's efforts but already knows another positive performance will be needed in next week's second leg if West Ham are to journey to Prague at the start of June...
It was a pretty difficult game to assess in many ways and we will look at the training ground tomorrow.
We got a lead. And we got in front. Any lead is important at the moment. But thankfully we didn’t give up too many defensive things. We should have stopped the goal, undoubtedly, but it happens.
I have been a bit worried about the way that AZ played.
They have got a good style and they showed it at times in the first half. But we made really poor decisions in the final third in the first half. We were shooting (from difficult positions) and weren’t crossing it. We made really poor decisions and we didn’t hold the ball up well at all. And they made it difficult for us to really impact on them as well.
I did at the time [think it was a foul in the build up to the first goal].
I think, if I was being fair, I would say I don’t want fouls for soft things. But tonight we expected this referee to give a lot of free-kicks when you look at his record was that he has given out numerous amounts of yellow cards so we knew that was probably coming tonight.
But we actually thought he may have given some of these free-kicks and the crowd did as well. I thought from the touchline it was a free-kick but it wasn’t given.
In the first half we looked a bit excitable and couldn’t wait to score.
And we didn’t go through the process to make it happen. But in the second we got there and we needed the goal, which changed it. And from the position we were in to get back to 2-1 is a good result. But as I said, I have been trying to warn people that Alkmaar have been in the top three or four in the Dutch league over the last year or two and are a good side.
We tried to work on [dealing with the way they play in training this week].
We knew how they would take the ball and that their midfield players were very good. They have got a No10 who comes into different pockets and causes problems and he did.
But we worked to try and stop it and in the main we did a good job. It was when we had the ball when we didn’t perform well enough in the final third.
I am pleased Saïd [is scoring his penalties regularly].
But he missed a great chance to make it 3-1 in open play, which is what I wanted. He has got the penalties but we need more goals from him from open play - and he missed a big chance tonight.
But I have to say, we are grateful for his penalty kicks at the moment because it looks as if he is meaning it and he is rattling them in at speed too.
I think it will be a really open game next week.
I think the way that they will play and the way we like probably play as well and we like to run and turning the ball over too much and too often, which means that I can only see it being any open game at the moment next week. But we have got a lead in the moment and hopefully we can do enough to keep that lead.
We have had some really big nights here.
And it just shows you what European football means. People just recognise it as something different. You are taking your Club into Europe and getting representing there and thankfully for the last couple of years we have been in Europe and doing an okay job.
