David Moyes had plenty of reasons to be proud coming out of Thursday evening’s trip to the Stadion am Wolfswinkel.
Not only did his West Ham United side battle to a hard-fought, and deserved, 2-1 win away to SC Freiburg – a win that means the Irons are top of UEFA Europa League Group A after two matches – but in doing so, Moyes’ Hammers set a new European record.
Avoiding defeat against Freiburg means West Ham have now gone 17 matches without loss in European fixtures, a record for any English side, beating the 16 set by Don Revie’s Leeds in 1968 and Bill Nicholson’s Tottenham Hotspur in 1972.
To be even included in such a conversation was a point of delight for Moyes, and moving clear with the record comes thanks to a particularly impressive performance for the visiting Irons.
The boss was thrilled with Lucas Paquetá’s efforts and finish on his 50th outing for the Club, and another set-piece finish for his side in the win:
17 matches unbeaten in Europe fills me with so much pride.
I got told about the record yesterday and I was quite thrilled to even be level with the two managers who were in question, Don Revie and Bill Nicholson, and I have to say I was delighted with getting the win.
The record is always really good to get, but more important was winning tonight, and getting those three points is so good, particularly when many would consider this the hardest game in the group.
I thought we started the game great.
I thought we pressed well. Jarrod Bowen and Lucas Paquetá did a great job for us up there and I think it as a brilliant early goal. It was a bit of an old-fashioned one in that he’s gone on the outside, crossed it in the box and it was a great, centre-forward’s leap from Paquetá. I loved the first goal. I thought it was really good and I really enjoyed it.
Lucas [Paquetá] was terrific tonight.
You can be pulling your hair out at times, with some of the things he does, but we can all stand back and admire someone who has got terrific strength, great ball control, skills, and wants to make risky passes and try things. He’s an incredibly talented footballer and tonight he showed that.
James Ward-Prowse has been great for us.
As have Edson and all the boys who have come in. We’re doing well in the cups and we’re in a decent position in the league at the moment. We want to keep it going. We don’t want to shout too much about it, but James’ deliveries are fabulous.
We wanted to be strong in this game.
I see Freiburg and Olympiacos both as competitive and very difficult to beat in this group, and it’s probably the most difficult group we’ve had in a European campaign so far.
I just feel the boys are doing a brilliant job. We’ve come away from home, got a result, our run in Europe continues and we’ve done really well. Hopefully it keeps building.
We’re on a good run of form and we want to take it into this weekend’s game.
We’ll dust ourselves down tonight. It’s never easy, going from Thursday night to Sunday, so we need to go back at it for what will be a huge game, especially after the way Newcastle played against PSG.
