Premier League football returns from the international break this weekend - and there will be no room for easing their way back into action for David Moyes and his West Ham United team.
For Manchester City are the Hammers' visitors to London Stadium on Saturday, with two of the division's unbeaten records on the line.
Pep Guardiola's treble-winners have won all four of their Premier League outings to date, while the Irons are only two points behind, with three wins and a draw to their name.
So Moyes says the east Londoners are relishing the challenge of taking on the Citizens and is hopeful their bight start to the campaign can continue.
A positive start
We’ve had three out of four away games in our first four games, which is a really tough run in the Premier League. For us to have done three away, and got the results we have, is excellent.
The performances, in some ways, have been really good and we’ve showed resilience in some of those games.
For me, the big thing is we’ve scored goals and we look like we’re going to score goals. If that continues then we give ourselves a great chance of continuing to pick up points.
The challenge of the Citizens and Guardiola
It’s between Pep and Sir Alex Ferguson [for the greatest manager ever]. There are lots and lots of great managers, and I think Sir Alex would always challenge anybody with his record.
But what Pep had brought to football in the last 15 years has changed the game. He’ll continue to win trophies because he’s got a good team with good players.
New coaches
I lost Paul Nevin and Mark Warburton in the summer so Mark Robson has come up from the U21s and I think it is really important we continue to promote from inside the Club as well.
Johnny Heitinga has joined, and we’ve also got Henry Newman too, who has been one of our analysts for a couple of years and someone who I felt deserved the opportunity to step up. We’ve added to the staff behind the scenes and, the way football is going and the preparation that we’ve got to do, I’m going to need them all.
Squad building
I am pleased with the squad we’ve assembled, pleased with the players I’ve got.
The Club have supported and backed us in every way to get lots of good players. We’ve sold a really good player, but hopefully we’re trying to build a team and have another new team getting ready to go again.
September's schedule ramping up
We’ve been discussing it a lot and we’ve been looking at how we recover the players correctly, and how often we think they can play. It’s why we get money from Sky Sports and other outlets, because of the schedule.
We buy players so we can then field strong teams in all the competitions. You have to use your whole squad and we’ll try to do that in the coming months because the games will take their toll on the players when they play so often.
Tragedy in Morocco
I had a chat with Nayef this morning and my understanding is that they were in the city where the earthquake was.
So they’re all pretty shaken up by the whole thing. But he’s back in and he’s training and he seems to be okay, but it’s a terrible tragedy for everybody.
