David Moyes is expecting a tough test for his West Ham United team when they welcome KAA Gent to London Stadium in the second leg of their UEFA Europa Conference League quarter-final on Thursday.
The Hammers head into the hotly-anticipated fixture looking to stretch an unbeaten run to four games in all competitions and reach the last four of a European competition for the fifth time in the Club's history.
Consecutive European semi-finals is the aim then for Moyes and his team, who secured a 1-1 draw away in Belgium in the first leg last week.
The Scot spoke about increased expectations on his side, particularly on the European stage, as well as the quality of Thursday's opponents and the prospect of seeing his team lift a major trophy for the first time since 1980.
The players performed incredibly well on Sunday.
They put on a good performance, and it was one which saw us get a well-earned point against Arsenal.
I think the performance gave everybody a lift because we performed much better than we have done. It gives us a lift going into the game on Thursday. If we can perform at those levels again then we’ll give ourselves a great chance of qualifying for the semi-finals.
Expectations here are so high now.
That’s because of how well we’ve done in the last two seasons. Recently, we’ve not played as well as we’d like but I thought, in the Arsenal game, we played really, really well, and the players put in a good showing. Let’s hope we can continue that.
A manager’s job is to raise expectations.
Isn’t it incredible that West Ham United are the favourites to win the UEFA Europa Conference League? There are only three European competitions to be in, and for people to think we’re worthy of winning one of those, it means a lot.
Over the [last two] years, we’ve had to chop and change our team.
The hardest thing about being in the Europa League, or Europa Conference League, is that you play on a Thursday and then a Sunday.
That does have an impact on all managers and their decision making. It’s not quite as easy as playing your best players. There is a bit more to it than that.
We expect Nayef Aguerd to be okay.
He had a foot injury that he got in the game against Gent over there, and he didn’t recover in time for Sunday. But he’s back training and we should have him back available.
I believe we can threaten Gent.
We’re at home and we’ll have a big crowd behind us. We’ve had some big European nights at London Stadium, like when we played Sevilla and Lyon, so hopefully we can rise to the occasion again and see ourselves through.
We’ll have to be very wary of Gent.
They are a difficult side and I think, when you get to the last eight of any European competition, very rarely are you getting poor sides. Gent dropped down from the Europa League play-offs too, so they were in the competition above, so we need to play very well.
They made it difficult for us in the first game and I don’t want to take anything for granted. We’ll need to play really well to get through.
Winning a European competition means everything and we’re going to try and be best we can.
If you look at the teams who are involved in Europe, it can become very difficult. What goes into the team preparation and organisation behind the scenes is detailed, so it can become tough when you’re playing Thursday-Sunday, but would we give it up? No. We’re proud of our European record.
I’ve not seen many games where teams are winning European games comfortably.
It looks like the games are really tight in Europe so, from that point of view, I’d expect the game to be tight. We have to do what we have to do win, but we’re expecting a difficult game.
That being said, we’ve been here before which will hopefully help. But so have a lot of teams in Europe. We hadn’t before, here at West Ham, before last season, so we didn’t know how the players would react to the games. We also had a terrific momentum throughout the season.
We’re getting towards the end of the season and we know we have to play well and put a team out that we think can get us the result.
Thursday is an opportunity, and we have to try and take it.
There is no given right that you deserve to win or because someone sees you as favourites, you go through. You have to earn the right to go into the semi-final. I think we’ve certainty earned the right to be in the position we’re in and to be in this competition last year. If we want to be a semi-finalist, then we have to earn it.
European football has been good for us.
We had ten wins out of it and then we drew last week away from home in a European quarter-final, which at any time would be seen as a good result. Because of our expectations, and how well we’ve done in Europe, it was maybe seen as not so good.
But that’s what happens when you start to raise those expectations. We hope we can keep those expectations high and push towards a semi-final.
It’s been a long time since West Ham lifted a trophy.
Bobby Moore and Billy Bonds, two of the finest names that people will always remember – no matter the club you support – being the two to lift trophies as captains is a big thing in itself. I think that’s a big incentive for the club.
I’ve had one or two bits of silverware in my career, but not the big ones. I’m in awe of the likes of José Mourinho and Pep Guardiola, who have been able to do it. But if you look through the whole history of managers, not many get to go on and lift trophies. I’ve got a couple but I’d like more, that’s for sure.
