David Moyes has called on his West Ham United team to bounce back from a hat-trick of disappointments when they host Liverpool in the Premier League on Saturday.
The Hammers fell to Premier League defeats by Fulham and Crystal Palace either side of suffering a UEFA Europa League quarter-final exit at the hands of Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen.
The Palace defeat, in particular, was a painful one for the manager, who saw his team concede four first-half goals at Selhurst Park. But, while the Irons’ form has not been the best in recent weeks, Moyes’ side can still snatch a top-seven finish should they end the season strongly.
The first of four fixtures to complete the 2023/24 campaign comes on Saturday lunchtime, when the Reds visit London Stadium in what could be Moyes’ final top-flight tussle with old rival Jürgen Klopp, as the Liverpool manager prepares to depart Liverpool this summer.
The Scot is looking forward to meeting the German for the 14th time in his career, and would love nothing more than to see his team return to the form which saw them achieve a record points tally in the first half of the season, top their Europa League group and reach the EFL Cup quarter-finals.
We need to show what it means to play for West Ham
The conversations [I had with the squad following the Crystal Palace game] will be private between me and the players, but I wouldn't change my wording, that’s for sure, because that’s the way I felt and I would say we let an awful lot of supporters down on the day.
Overall, Palace played well and we didn't and we were very poor, so what we want is a reaction from the players. We want to show what it means to play for West Ham, a bit of pride, and hopefully we can show that.
Our European dream is still alive
We’re eighth in the Premier League at the moment, with four games to go and we’re just about to go into May. It’s an incredible position to be in, and we’ve been in it nearly all the season.
We’ve also being competing in Europe so have probably played 12 or 13 games more than any of the teams who weren’t in Europe.
Liverpool have also played a lot of games but, to be fair to them, they’ve got used to it over many years.
From our point of view, we’re in there, we’re still in with a shout with four games to go and we’ll try to make Europe and it would be a great achievement to make it four years in a row.
We need to start better, work harder and be more committed
Our start was incredibly good against Bayer Leverkusen, we got in front and should have been two or three goals up, so [poor starts are] not a regular thing, but I will say I was ashamed that we were four goals down after 30 minutes at Palace, I really was.
I don't think my teams over the years have done that, so I don't like it, I didn't like it at the time and certainly didn't like it after the event either. I hope that I can make sure that doesn't happen in the future but in football you never can tell. We need to defend better generally and that comes from number one in number eleven on the team.
I’ve been around football a long time, been involved in managing a lot of games and players can be different. Sometimes they might not say too much but perform greatly, but sometimes they can perform in training and it doesn’t work, so there is no magic formula to get back on track, but a good dose of hard work is a good place to start.
Liverpool are still in the title race
I find it difficult to accept that Liverpool are out of the [Premier League] title race.
I would think that Liverpool are heavily in the title race. They had a bad result [losing 2-0 at Everton in midweek], but other teams have got to play big games, and they’re under pressure to win the games.
We saw a magnificent performance last night from Manchester City against Brighton, but I think Liverpool are right in there.
I think they've done a really good job, Liverpool, in their league campaign this year, and maybe surprised a few people, but I don't think they’ve surprised me because I think that they’re a football club who tend to be always challenging around winning things and competing at the top end.
The players and supporters will be ready
The Sunday two o'clock kick-offs have never been great, I have to say, so I'm hoping on a Saturday morning they’re ready to go, just like the team need to be.
We need to be ready to go on Saturday morning as well and hopefully the supporters are too.
