David Moyes is hoping the many positive European memories his squad, staff and supporters have collected over the previous three years will boost West Ham United’s chances of defeating SC Freiburg in the UEFA Europa League round of 16.
The Hammers kick-off trailing by a single goal to their German opponents from the first leg - the exact same situation they found themselves in when they hosted Spanish side Sevilla in the same competition two years ago this month – and knowing they need to win on the night to have any chance of progressing to the quarter-finals.
Roared on by a vociferous Claret and Blue Army, Moyes’ Irons came from behind in 2022, and the manager believes that with the West Ham supporters behind them his present-day squad can rise to the occasion again in 2024, despite the second-leg tie being scheduled for an unfamiliar 5.45pm kick-off time.
Moyes knows keeping a rare clean sheet would help his team’s hopes of going through, as would a clinical display in front of goal, but he is expecting a tight affair against opponents his Irons have faced three times already in the current European campaign…
It’s a big task, but we have done it before and hopefully we'll do it again.
We’ve played Freiburg three times this season, so we have to try and get a victory from it.
We all know what the outcome has to be, and whether we win in 90 minutes, or whether we win over 120 minutes, we have to do it one way or the other, so I think our focus in every way is only on how we’re going to win and putting in a performance to get us there.
The biggest memory will be Sevilla where we had to come from behind, and at that time they were winners of the competition several times.
So, I think it was a real tough task for us. It took us 120 minutes to get the job done that night.
That will always be a big memory of mine in the European period we've been involved in, but Freiburg are a good, steady Bundesliga team competing in Europe again.
As I said, we've beaten them a couple of times this season. They've beaten us once now, so this one is a big important one, because this one gets you through to the next round.
It's always important in football to make a fast start, but the most important thing is how it ends up.
So we'll do everything to start the game very well and we'll plan to be on the front foot as early as we possibly can be.
The Sevilla game was big, but our first game was Dinamo Zagreb away. It felt like ‘Oh, what a game away from home!’ and we won, which was a huge result.
The reason we got a game against Sevilla was because of how well we had done in the group and how well we had played against those other teams, and that was our first year in Europe for a long, long time.
We got through the group to the last 16 and then the quarter-finals, but people were excited before that and we had nearly 60,000 at every game in Europe in the first year. It was fantastic, so we want to keep that up and we're not changing.
We're still trying to win it, so we want everybody behind us.
If you want to be on the big stage, now is the time to put your act on and show it, because if you can’t perform, don’t go on stage!
The crowd have been brilliant in the European games, especially.
I mentioned that the Sevilla game stands out and maybe that was the start of the journey as it was our first season in Europe. We were actually drawn against some really big opposition with Lyon and Sevilla, for example.
I think that we'll need the crowd to play a big, big part on Thursday. Obviously we've got a slightly difficult kick-off time, or a strange kick-off time for a Football Club in London to be starting, so we've got to hope that you get through rush hour and flexible working hours allows people to get to the stadium with plenty of time so we can get that backing we will so badly need.
It won’t be difficult to prepare the team for an earlier kick-off. We'll prepare for the game as we would do any other game, so there's no complaints about that.
If we perform well, we'll get that atmosphere, so we don't want to focus too much on the other parts of it, but certainly we need to give the supporters something.
We need to give them something which they can get behind, but obviously, when you’re a goal down you need your home support.
I think we're getting good experience in Europe, but we've also got a team full of international players.
With the games in Europe, I think we're learning more. I think we're understanding a bit more how to control it, and we’ll need to do that on Thursday night.
It's easy to say ‘put all the attacking players out because that's what you need to do’, but we have an opposition to play against and we need to try to win the tie over the 90-minute or 120-minute period.
So we'll do everything we possibly can to get through the competition because it's a competition we really want to continue to do well in.
We’ve had two or three magnificent years in it and we want to keep it going.
I think we've always planned for Danny Ings to have a big role to play.
I think Danny was probably coming into a game he suited on Sunday. We were the team on top and had lots of penalty box entries and opportunities and it was about who could finish well, and everybody knows Danny Ings is great at that part of the game.
There have been other games where we've not had as much of the ball and not as much around the box where I don’t see Danny giving us quite as much of what we require there.
He did a great job coming on and it is what we hoped Danny Ings would get us, goals when he comes on or when he starts.
It was his first goal for a while, so I’m pleased for him, and he was unlucky maybe not to score more than the one goal he got.
Keeping clean sheets is not something we've done regularly recently and it may be too simplistic to say that we need to keep one on Thursday, but that would be a great start.
The game the other night was incredibly tight. We gave away a really sloppy goal on 82 minutes when it was looking as if there wasn't wasn't going to be any goals in the game.
The games have all been tight against Freiburg, the two in the group stage and last week, so I don't expect it to be too much different.
We’ve defended a bit better at times recently and I have to say the goalkeeper [Alphonse Areola] has been playing magnificently well, so credit to him as well.
We’ll be as prepared as best as we possibly can be [for the possibility of a penalty shootout], so it’ll be no different for Freiburg and I’m sure they’ll be the same.
