David Moyes is eager for West Ham United to continue their recent good home form when Wolverhampton Wanderers visit London Stadium.
The Hammers welcome Wolves to east London on Sunday in the Premier League, with the hosts heading into this weekend’s match without defeat in their last five matches in E20.
Indeed, the Irons come into the game in good form, having lost just one of their eight matches in all competitions, and recent home form against the West Midlands side is in West Ham’s favour.
Moyes is not taking the task of toppling Gary O’Neil’s Wolves lightly, though. The former Hammers midfielder has done an impressive job of steading the ship at Molineux and the manager is anticipating another tough Premier League test.
The boss was in a positive mood when he met the media at Rush Green on Friday morning, having seen his Hammers top 2023/24 UEFA Europa League Group A on Thursday evening; a result that puts the Club into the round of 16 of the competition.
Moyes also discussed the ongoing busy festive schedule, squad rotation considerations, and the from of Edson Álvarez in his pre-match press conference…
Europa League reflections
Finishing top of Group A is terrific for the Club and for the players. It gives us a little bit of a breather in February as well, in terms of missing the knockout round play-off games, and we’re pleased the boys have done a really good job in Europe. It’s the third year in a row that we’ve top the group so we’re really pleased about that.
When you’re successful then you find there’s very little time to rest or recover. We want to be successful and we want the games in Europe, but any chance you can get to take a bit of time then we’ll take it. The result on Thursday evening has given us that opportunity.
We’ve had some really good European nights and, when it gets to the big games like Sevilla, Lyon and AZ Alkmaar last year, it gives us even more reason to look forward to those latter stages and more special nights at London Stadium.
Squad update
We need to wait and see how the lads are [after the Freiburg game]. Edson Álvarez got a knock on his hip but we’ll need to wait and see how that is.
We’ll assess the players when we have the chance. It’s such a quick turnaround. I don’t think there is enough time between the games. Does that mean I am going to be rotating the side? I don’t know right now. We’ll see how the games go and how the lads are performing, and where their energy levels are.
It’s the same for all managers and teams at the moment. We all have the dilemma with this number of games. We also have a Carabao Cup game next week that some teams don’t have, so we’re in a busy run. Hopefully we can get through that, which would then give us more games in January and make the schedule even more busy. But all the teams at this time of year have got a heavy workload.
Watch out for Wolves
I think Gary O’Neil has done a great job at Wolves so far. He did a great job at Bournemouth too and, when you’re a young coach, you need to be given an opportunity and you need to be given time. I think he’s doing a really good job at Wolves at the moment.
Wolves have always been a good side. They’ve had good teams and good managers. They had two very good, very experienced managers last season too. I think Gary has steadied them and got them playing well. There are differences, of course, but they look in good shape and it will be another very tough Premier League game.
We’ve got to go and do our business, try to keep our good home form going and try to win again.
A familiar face
We’re looking forward to seeing Craig Dawson again. He played a huge part getting us from where we started to where we are now. He was a big part of it. We were disappointed when he left but we knew there were other reasons behind it (Dawson's family live in the North West and he was regularly commuting to training).
He’s a good lad and I’m sure he’s being a big help for Wolves at the moment.
Álvarez’s immediate impact
I think he’s made a big impression really quickly. In terms of his performances, he has helped us to get some big results already. It took the new lads last year a bit longer to settle in whereas I think our new players this year have settled in much quicker.
Generally, I think they are still getting used to the Premier League and the amount of games, its intensity, and some of the lads might not be used to playing football over this time of the season. I have to say though that Edson has done really well.
He’s a great boy who is still getting used to living in this country, but he has settled in really well.
Home comforts
We want to try and continue our good home form. We know it can be better but we want to keep our good run going. We’ve got home games coming up against Wolves, Manchester United and Brighton & Hove Albion in the next couple of weeks that we want to use to our advantage.
We don’t need to think too much about Europe now until March either, so we’re looking forward to our coming games. We want to stay close to the boys at the top end of the table and try to get in amongst them.
