West Ham United manager David Moyes is looking forward to putting his side out against Norwich City when they take on Dean Smith’s side in Premier League action on Wednesday.
The Hammers welcome Smith's Canaries to London Stadium in a midweek fixture and manager Moyes has high respect for his opposite number’s achievements as a manager, highlighting his work with Brentford and Aston Villa in recent years.
Despite Norwich being locked in a battle against relegation, Moyes knows Wednesday’s vicitors will provide a stern test for his players.
Norwich have got a really good manager in Dean Smith.
I think the thing about Norwich is that they’ve got a really good manager in Dean Smith. He’s only been in the job not for long and it takes a little bit of time to get things sorted, but if you look back at Dean did at Walsall, Brentford, and what he did in getting Aston Villa up, you’d have thought he would have been given a little bit more time at Aston Villa.
But I’m pleased for Dean because I think he’s at a good club in Norwich. They give managers a chance and they give managers an opportunity to be there. I hope it gives Dean a chance, because it’s worked at every other club he’s been at.
Wednesday's match is an opportunity for us.
Norwich City are in a different sort of fight. They’re in a fight to stay up, but I don’t think any of the teams have been cut adrift yet and I think there’s a chance for the bottom five teams.
There’s a fight on and Norwich will see every game as an opportunity, but I see it here at West Ham as an opportunity to challenge the teams at the top and try to keep ourselves around them, annoying them, and make them think that we’re not going away.
We’re finding form, looking lively and scoring goals again.
Our players have got a really good mentality. It’s a changed mentality, I hope. We’re keeping focus and we’re not coming off the job.
We’ve had a few weeks where we’ve been up and down but I’m just sensing that we’re getting back into a little bit of better form and scoring goals again. We’re looking livelier and I’m hoping we’re coming back into a bit of form.
I was really pleased with the two wins and I was really pleased with the FA Cup win against Leeds United, because it’s like three Premier League wins in a row.
Our next game is against Norwich, which is another challenge in itself, and we’ll treat it in the same way as we’ve treated the other ones.
Jarrod Bowen has taken his game to another level.
Jarrod’s improvement in the two years he has been here has been brilliant. When you take players from the lower leagues, you have to give them a bit of time to come up and get used to the Premier League, but Jarrod near enough got started right away and got us goals and assists.
He’s taken his game onto another level and he needs to keep it up. I think he can do whatever he wants, and he can play even better.
That’s the good bit for Jarrod because he’s still got even more development to come. But he’s doing a great job for us just now.
We’d like to add players in the transfer window.
We’d like to add to the squad, and if we can find players that are suitable then we could do with some back-up if we can.
But there’s never any guarantee in January. Whether it’s players you want or if the right players are available, or gettable. But we’re certainly looking around.
Guvna B’s record pledge for Isla Caton is brilliant.
I think Guvna B giving all proceeds from his rap to support Isla Caton is brilliant. It’s absolutely brilliant.
Isla is a young girl who has struggled, and the Club here have done everything they can to try to help, but it’s really good that support is coming in, in other ways, to raise funds. We’re really pleased.
If anybody's out there and you can buy the record and donate, it would go down really, really well.