David Moyes was a proud man and a proud manager after leading West Ham United into the UEFA Europa League.
The Hammers ended a memorable, unique 2020/21 season with a 3-0 win over Southampton in front of 10,000 jubilant supporters at London Stadium that secured sixth place.
The Irons also secured a record Premier League points total with 65, a record number of victories with 19 - including a record nine away wins - and finished in the top six of the top tier for just the sixth time in the Club's 126-year history.
Saturday's win was a microcosm of the campaign, with West Ham showing resilience to stay on level terms early before showing their quality as Pablo Fornals netted a quickfire brace before Declan Rice fittingly capped a season ending win with a superb solo goal late on.
Speaking to West Ham TV after the game, Moyes lauded his team and his staff for the job they have done, and the supporters for their loyalty during a challenging campaign affected almost totally by the COVID pandemic...
Breaking the Premier League points record is fantastic for us.
I think breaking the points total was something that we really hoped to do. It was a challenge when we heard what it was and we had a little bit of a dip just after the last international break, so it was great that we picked it up again and we’ve finished with a couple of wins which shows that the players kept it going right to the end.
Qualifying for the Europa League is a huge achievement too.
We want to build West Ham up and we want to keep doing it. I see a great chance to go further and make it bigger and better. I hope that the standards we’ve set this year will continue as we’ve had such a good year and we don’t want to be at the bottom any more.
We want to be competing at the top end and we’ve won some games, I wouldn’t say easily, but we’ve showed that we’re a good side and now the job is to build on that.
We’ve got a good team at the moment, I want to add to that and build on it and I want us to go into all the games thinking we’ve got a chance. The players have grown in confidence throughout the season, they’ve been brilliant behind the scenes in what has been a tough time.
Big thanks to the fans today and I’m really looking forward to getting full houses here. It deserves a full house the way the players are playing at the moment
To win 3-0 today in front of the fans was a fantastic way to finish.
We’ve been scoring quite freely this season and it’s been good. We probably didn’t play that well today, but the performance wasn’t the important thing, it was the result.
It was great to get the supporters back, it really was. I’m pleased that they had a chance to see the players because this season they’ve deserved the support and they’ve deserved the acclaim because they’ve done so well. Long may that continue.
I was delighted for Pablo Fornals because he deserves those goals.
He’s given so much to the team and he got his reward today. In the games recently I think we could have scored three or four against Brighton and he had the same against West Brom, but the goal didn’t come.
I said to him a few days ago: ‘You’re due to score two’ and thankfully he came up with two today.
Declan Rice scoring the third was a fitting way to end the season.
I’m glad Dec had that because he’s been massively influential. He’s such a good player and he’s still finding his way a little bit with his fitness after his injury, but he’s just beginning to get back there and I was pleased to see h
