David Moyes: Genk, Europa hopes and Nikola Vlašić

 

David Moyes cannot wait to experience the atmosphere of a London Stadium European night once more when Genk come to town on Thursday.

The Hammers welcome the Belgian Cup winners to London Stadium for their third UEFA Europa League group stage game, knowing victory would put them in a strong position to qualify for the next phase.

The boss will not get ahead of himself though and says the team is fully focused on the job in hand this Thursday evening.

 

We're really enjoying the European nights.

We're a really happy Club at the moment. Everyone's enjoying the league games, Europe and the Carabao Cup, so I have to say I'm really enjoying the European experience.

I want the players to go far in it. It would be great if we could top the group, but trying to make sure that we go through would be the main aim at the moment.

Because we're first-time triers at this for a long time, qualifying would be a success, but ideally we'd love to win the group.

I don't want to put that level of expectation on the Club as we're new to it, but I respect Genk, Dinamo Zagreb and Rapid Vienna.

Ultimately, we'd love to win the group, but we'll have to win the games to do that.

 

We're working hard to meet the demands of all the competitions.

 

Let's not kid ourselves: the Europa League at this time is easy to talk about, but when teams drop in from the Champions League...

I was really unfortunate to lose in the last 16 to Fiorentina on penalties with Everton. You have to get through the early part of the season.

You find a way of managing this part of the season in European football and still competing in the Premier League going into the second half of the season - that would be my goal at the moment.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing Nikola Vlašić in action on Thursday.

We really like him. We've been really pleased by him. He's come into a relatively settled side which we've got at the moment, but we'll use him tomorrow night and I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do.

If I had my way, I'd like to let the players have the chance to settle and for everybody to get the chance to know them.

 

I'm approaching 1,000 games in management and I was happy to see Steve Bruce make that number at the weekend.

I know I'm very close and it was a great achievement by Steve to reach that number.

I think it's very hard to get longevity in football management, because so many young managers lose their job after their first go at it.

To get to this period is an achievement, so I praise Steve - and I know I've got it coming, if I can see through the next few games!!!

I do believe management's much more difficult now than when I came into it. If you come into football management, you have to accept it - it comes with the job unfortunately. Most managers will always have periods when you're fighting to get results.