There is little time for David Moyes and his West Ham United team to bask in the glory of Thursday night’s 2-1 victory at Tottenham Hotspur.
For the Irons are back in Premier League action at Fulham on Sunday with another three points on the line.
The boss spoke to the assembled media to preview the trip to Craven Cottage just 12 hours after the final whistle blew in north London and he is keen for his side to continue building momentum.
They are now six games unbeaten and have the chance to move towards the top five of the table when they head west at the weekend.
A huge Premier League win
Tottenham are one of the top teams and have been playing exceptionally well, so for us to go there and get a result was exceptional.
I’ve said many times that possession doesn’t necessarily win you the games. It’s better if you have it and you might give yourself a better chance but we found another way of getting a result.
We hadn’t been particularly good in the first half, we sat off just too much, but we improved greatly in the second half and got ourselves a few chances to score.
All credit to the players, they did a really good job.
Jarrod Bowen is dangerous wherever he plays
I think Jarrod can play as a centre-forward as well – I thought for a couple of years that he was developing [that way] and if you look at the history at the Club, we’ve had Marko Arnautović who was a wide player. I put him at centre-forward and he did a brilliant job.
Then we’ve done a bit the same with Micky Antonio, who was mainly a wide player and we moved him through the middle.
I think because it’s so difficult to find or buy centre forwards who you can bring in and get success, it’s sometimes the ones you’ve got [who you have to nurture].
Jarrod has always scored goals, even when he was at Hull, and he has scored a lot of goals playing off wide areas. I think he can play centre-forward too and he’s proven it.
It’s not to say he will always play centre-forward. We’ll be happy to play him wide again and there will be games we choose to play him wide and games we choose to play him centre-forward depending on it.
We’re really pleased he’s got another goal away from home. He’s got nine goals at the moment, whether he’s playing wide or centre-forward and we’re not halfway through yet, so if he keeps these numbers up he’ll have a good number of goals by the end.
I hope he can keep pushing to be part of Gareth Southgate’s squad and gives himself a chance of going to the Euros.
Mohammed Kudus’ impact
Mo has been exceptional in so many different ways. He’s been an assist-maker, he’s been a goalscorer for us, and I think he’s getting used to the demands of Premier League, and I think even from the opening games he’s improved greatly.
I can only see him improving as time goes on, you have to remember this is a boy who has only come into the Premier League three months ago. It was quite late in the transfer window brining him in and he’s played ever so well.
He’s a good boy, working hard for the team, and scoring and making goals.
No doubts over Fabiański
Łukasz Fabiański is a superb goalkeeper and has been for years and years here. I had no worries about putting him in and I wasn’t surprised about how well he played and how comfortable he was.
He was unlucky to have to step aside for Alphonse to come into the team – Alphonse has played very well for us too, but I think last night Łukasz was excellent, he really was.
A tough test at Fulham
I think Fulham are a very good team. They played very well last season and have come into a little bit of form as well.
They’ve got a really good manager, they’ve got good players in their team and every game in the Premier League is hard.
They scored three against Liverpool, they scored five in midweek against Forest, so whatever they’re doing, they’re getting it right at the moment.
They’ve been a progressive team in the last few years and have steadied themselves, becoming a strong Premier League team after yo-yoing for a few years. They’re doing really well.
Going again so quickly
We only get three points for the win against Tottenham, you don’t get any more than that, but I do believe the performance and result will hopefully give us added confidence and belief.
It was a big night for us and we’ve got to move onto the next game. The scheduling is incredibly difficult, we’re playing Thursday nights and Sundays all the time by the looks of it.
We’ve got very little recovery time, but overall we hope we can get ourselves ready for another game on Sunday.
A win at Tottenham was a great start to these two away games.
