Ahead of West Ham United's 2022/23 Premier League finale against Leicester City, Łukasz Fabiański has The Last Word...
It's the last game in the Premier League this afternoon and it has been a long season. I don’t think there will be another one like we experienced this year, with the break for the World Cup.
For us, since we resumed playing again after the World Cup it has been just full on. So, especially here at West Ham, competing in Europe and doing well, it’s almost felt like it’s kept coming and coming at us.
Of course it has been an up-and-down season. Obviously we found ourselves at one point in a very bad position, but then Europe has been constantly on a high, so it has had highs and lows.
Luckily enough, hopefully we have been able to finish the season in a strong way. We are safe, we are in a final. It has been a bit of a struggle from a difficult moment, but in the end it can turn out to be one of the best seasons in the history of West Ham United. We are close to achieving something special.
There were some difficult moments in the season, but we had the experience that we knew how to react, and we knew there was no big reason to panic. I think that’s what helped us to show the whole process of getting ourselves out of the difficult position in the table.
One of the best examples of this was when we played Fulham away, because in the week we had such a bad game against Newcastle at home. We were able to deliver something to get us back on the right track and out of this position.
I think my experience helped me to say, 'Listen, control what we can control and don’t panic about things', because there were lots of points to play for. If you put in good performances and hard work every day, in the end you should be calm about how it will look at the end of the season.
We go to Leicester today and you have to treat this game as preparation for the final. We have found a bit of consistency before the end of the season, so we don’t want to give that up.
We want to keep the same positive energy after Leicester that we’ve had after recent results. You want to keep the momentum going and there is no better way to do that than putting in a good performance and getting a result today.
We need to play in the right way and be competitive. Obviously it will be a difficult game for us because they are fighting for their lives, but at the same time we have a final to look forward to and this game should be a preparation for that, so we need to make sure we do all the right things.
