David Moyes was full of praise for both the performance and the result as West Ham United beat Arsenal 3-1 to earn a spot in the Carabao Cup last eight.
Jarrod Bowen’s corner in the first half was turned into the net for an own-goal by Arsenal defender Ben White but, while the Hammers’ opening finish was fortunate, there was something special about the other two strikes.
Mohammed Kudus’ amazing touch and strike, from Nayef Aguerd’s pass, doubled the lead early in the second half before Bowen powered home West Ham’s third on the hour mark.
Well-timed pressing and impervious defending meant the hosts were never truly threatened by the visiting Gunners, who could only find the net with a very late consolation; Martin Ødegaard slotting in with virtually the last kick of the match.
But, while Arsenal could get on the score-heet, it was not enough to dampen West Ham spirits as Moyes’ men found their way into the quarter-finals of the competition.
For the manager, with memories of last season’s UEFA Europa Conference League success still fresh in the mind, progression in the tournament was just reward for his team’s efforts…
It was a great result.
It was a really good team performance. We had a few new players out there; Dinos came in at centre-half and did very well. Jarrod went up at centre-forward and did well, and Mo came in and did really, really well tonight. There were a lot of good things to be pleased about.
We need to be rock solid.
I think everyone can see we’re trying to play slightly differently and get better. We’ve got the players now to do it and we’re trying to be better on the ball. But ultimately, if we can’t defend then we’re going to have a problem. We have to make sure we can do that as well as we possibly can.
We got a little bit fortunate with the first goal.
But that’s what happens when you send in good deliveries, you get something from it. We got the own-goal and that gave us a good platform to build from.
There’s a lot of things you have to think about in football at the moment.
If you press too fast then the boys might pass it and move through you, or they can open you up. There’s so many things going on tactically and all these things come into the thinking but we did a lot of good things well tonight. We really did. We pressed well and we defended well when we needed to.
The second-half goals were beautiful strikes.
Mo scored a great goal. It’s a lovely pass from Nayef and a great touch and finish from Mo. Mo is on a couple of goals and Jarrod has been getting goals too. We’ve got a few goals tonight.
Hopefully we’re becoming a cup team.
If we do then we might have more success like we had at the end of last season. But we’re also talking about Premier League teams, so whoever you get it’s going to be a real battle.
One way or another, it’s another game on our already heavy schedule. But we’d always rather be in the cup than out of it.
