David Moyes is looking to seal a convincing win against newly-promoted side Bournemouth. His team has struggled to find the back of the net throughout the domestic campaign, but his most recent press conference suggests that this may begin to change.
Bournemouth has had a testing return to the Premier League, suffering the club's heaviest defeat to Liverpool in August. The early sacking of former 'Hammer of the Year' Scott Parker shocked many fans across the league, and the Cherries received sceptism from their decision. However, another former West Ham player, Gary O'Neil, has taken Parker's managerial role at the club, and has only lost one game in charge so far.
He spoke to the media in a pre-match press conference on Friday.
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On Bournemouth
David Moyes has a fond memory of playing the visiting club, saying:
"When I came back in, we beat Bournemouth 4-0 in my first game back. At that time, every point was going to be crucial for us. It was a great start and it was probably a big boost that the players needed."
The change of a team's backroom staff after only a handful of league games is never easy, for anyone involved in the club. However, Moyes was very complimentary about both the current and former manager, appreciating how tough the job can be.
"Gary O’Neil has done a very good job at Bournemouth.
I’ve got to say that Scott Parker did a brilliant job at Bournemouth as well. He got them up and back in the Premier League, which was a great achievement. Gary has picked it up and taken it on a little bit as well, so he’s done very well.
It’s not easy to go on these sorts of runs in the Premier League, with a new club, but they’ve had a really good start to the season."
Currently, the Premier League standings are very tight. Teams can move from relegation spots to a top 10 position in the space of a weekend. Granted, the season is still relatively new, however after 11 games, the competition is arguably as close as it has ever been.
"I’m not surprised by how tight the Premier League table is looking.
I think there is very little between the teams in the Premier League. With the teams at the bottom, there are some very good sides down there and that could change very quickly. I think the tightness in the league is not a surprise."
Countless shock results have graced the season so far, and Moyes refuses to be complacent coming into games. His team has dropped a handful of points to teams that on paper, they should have arguably beat - Nottingham Forest, Brighton and Everton, for example.
"There are three or four very good, exceptional teams, but there is not much between the rest of the sides.
I think every game, no matter who you’re playing, comes with a huge degree of difficulty. We’ll go into the game knowing it’s a pretty important home game for us. Our home form has been pretty good and we want to try and keep that going."
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On the Hammers' lack of goals
In 11 games, West Ham have only managed to score nine goals, with 29% shooting accuracy. Moyes have addressed this issue over the last few weeks, but sounds determined to change the Hammers scoring fortune.
"We need to get a better goal tally than we have at the moment.
I can’t do a lot between now and Monday but what we can do is make the players aware that we feel we’re missing too many opportunities. We need more goals across every area of the pitch. We’ve spread the goals around over the last couple of years. We went a long time last year when we didn’t score many goals but we’ve got to get goals all around the team."
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On team news
Injury problems have always challenged West Ham. Currently, Maxwel Cornet, Craig Dawson, Lucas Paquetá and Nayef Aguerd are out for the Hammers. Moyes gave updates for Dawson and Cornet, who look most likely to feature the soonest.
"Hopefully both Maxwel and Craig will have a chance [against Bournemouth]. Maxwel has been on the grass, but it might come a bit quick for him."
West Ham fans were also worried about the severity of £50million man Lucas Paquetá, who sustained a shoulder injury in the draw against Southampton. Moyes revealed at the time that the Brazilian could spend a significant amount of time on the sideline, but Paquetá was quick to announce to his social media that this was not the case. Moyes provided an update to this saga.
"Lucas Paquetá, we don’t think his injury is as serious as we feared at first.
I know the injury is one that is not normal for football players. From that point of view, we need to treat it slightly different. Hopefully we will get him back shortly.”
The Hammers play three games in seven days this week, and Moyes admitted that his team selection will be based on players' freshness. After his transfer haul this summer and the depth of the squad has improved, Moyes can change the team game-to-game and still maintain high-quality.
"You always want to try and play with your best team but quite often, with the current situation, you’re having to change things to keep things a bit fresher.
We’re trying to give the players recovery time between the games and then getting them ready for the next one. If you look back to our best season a couple of years ago, we were doing Saturday-Saturday games, which gave us time to properly prepare the team for every game.
We gave a pretty good go of it last year and we’re giving a pretty good go of it this year, but it’s a difficult schedule for everybody.”