David Moyes was in exuberant mood when he spoke to the daily newspaper journalists following Saturday’s 1-0 Premier League victory over Chelsea.
The West Ham United manager was asked about getting the best out of Marko Arnautovic, Michail Antonio’s amazing work-rate and working with Stuart Pearce.
The Scot’s answers were both enlightening and entertaining…
Getting the most out of Marko
I was asked after Saturday’s game how I best use Marko Arnautovic if everyone in the squad is fit.
It’s a tactical jigsaw puzzle which I will have to make before and during every game we play.
If we play with three at the back, as we did against Chelsea, it’s going to be difficult to play with Michail Antonio wide on the right, to play Arnautovic wide on the left, because it would mean we will be 3-4-3, which can be too attacking, particularly against the top sides.
On Saturday we were 3-5-2 for most of the game, with Michail down the middle and Marko supporting him, with Manuel Lanzini slightly deeper.
We used their power and strength and I thought those two as forwards could cause problems, and they did.
Marko’s all-round work has been really good. I’ve just said to all the players ‘If you don’t do it I won’t select you because at the moment I need it’.
Football isn’t all about running, it’s about or passing the ball as well and other things, but what the people here want to see is players putting in effort, and energy.
And I think the energy Marko showed is giving the crowd a lift and they are reacting to see if Marko Arnautovic can do it they all can do it.
Michail ran himself into the ground
Talking of hard work, Michail Antonio literally ran himself into the ground on Saturday.
We wanted him to stay on as long as he could because we thought he was in the mood. There’s getting tired and grinding to a halt. He worked really hard. He works really hard in every game and is a real handful at times.
It’s more important that with him coming back from injury, we don’t overdo it and he gets injured.
I wanted to hit them on the break but then he ran out of steam. We got Andre Ayew on in the end and he used his experience and his abilities to help us see the game out.
Stuart scares a few people!
The media asked me what I thought of Stuart Pearce being told to sit down after he kicked the ball into the stand during the second half!
I think the public here know what Stuart Pearce is. And a lot of the people here thought the defenders played a lot more like Stuart Pearce, putting their foot through the ball and tackling and that we were more resilient than what we have seen in other games.
Chelsea did have some opportunities but in the main we did a really good job in defending.
Anthony Taylor came over and had a word, but I think some of the refs are a wee bit frightened of him!