West Ham United supporters have a lot to look forward to in the second half of the season, manager David Moyes has affirmed.
Following their return from a mid-season break in fixtures, the Irons are back and ready to battle on three fronts in the coming months: the Premier League, in which they sit fifth and are contending for UEFA Champions League qualification; the Europa League, for whom they are in the Round of 16 draw later this month; and the FA Cup.
Their next assignment is in the latter competition, away at National League North side Kidderminster Harriers on Saturday afternoon – and Moyes and his players, as the manager revealed at his pre-match press conference, cannot wait…
This is what the FA Cup is all about.
I’ve seen lots of sides of it. I’ve been in winning teams and losing teams at different levels of the Cup competition.
I’ve been knocked out early, I’ve got to a Cup final, so you never know how the Cup’s going to go. We’re looking forward to the game.
I think if we were at the London Stadium, it’d be a much different situation to going away from home.
Obviously the surroundings [at Aggborough Stadium] are not as big, the pitch will probably not be in as good a condition as you’d expect of a Premier League pitch, but everybody’s been brought up as footballers. We all started at a level, and you have to show that if you have to play at that level, you can perform.
People have been telling me I was part of the Preston team who lost to Kidderminster Harriers in the FA Cup fourth round in 1994.
I could hardly remember it, but once I looked back into it and thought about it, I think the only difference was that Kidderminster were doing really well in the Conference at the time and we were in the bottom tier of the leagues at Preston, so it maybe wasn’t as big a surprise as it’s made out.
When non-league teams beat league sides, it’s always seen as a shock, so we have to make sure that isn’t the case here.
There were nine Premier League clubs who didn't bring any players in during the January transfer window.
For some reason, it's been a much more difficult January window than others, but I have to say we wanted to add to the squad if we could do.
We targeted players we thought could help us, but unfortunately we just couldn't quite get them over the line. We did get close to deals, but for different reasons they didn't quite happen.
I want to be ambitious here at West Ham. I want to bring in good players, and add to what is a really good squad we've got at the moment. We’re building on it.
If we’re talking about another striker, I didn’t necessarily want just back-up, I wanted real competition. I could have easily gone out and bought back-up, but what I wanted was real competition, people who could take other people’s jerseys and challenge them, and that’s what we tried to get.
Sometimes, to get the players you actually want, you have to wait a little bit longer. We weren’t able to get them in this January window, but nine clubs didn't do any business. We did try very hard, I have to say.
I can only tell you the Board were terrific through the January window. They have been since I’ve been here. They’ve supported us greatly and made funds available, and we tried to use the supporters’ money and the Boards’ money the best we could.
We just couldn’t get a couple of players we’d have really liked. I’d rather save the money than waste it.
Alex Král has maybe been a little but unfortunate to not feature more.
He had COVID, which made it difficult for him as he missed out on a period where there were more games. I would like to try and get Alex some minutes and give him an opportunity to see what he can do.
Alex is still getting used to the speed and the whole situation. We’ve said many times how long it can take some players to get used to Premier League football. Some players can come in immediately and others take a bit of time.
I think Alex is just taking a little bit of time, but hopefully he’ll get some football the second half of the season.
I would hope that we would always give any opponent the respect that they deserve.
You have to give the players and the teams in the lower leagues even more respect. With respect, you might not know all their players or exactly their stadium, so I think you have to do even more work on it and be prepared as well as you possibly can be.
We did a good job against Leeds United in the first game, so we need to make sure we do a good job in this game.
All the draws we’ve had in the Cup this season have been hard, be it in the Carabao Cup or in the UEFA Europa League. It’s now the FA Cup and I’d put Kidderminster in that category as well: it’s a tough game for us.
Ultimately, we’re favourites to win the game and everybody will see it that way, but the Cup doesn’t always pan out the way everybody thinks.
We’ve got to prepare correctly, be ready, inform the players as much as we can regarding their players and how we see the game going. We’ll try to do that.
I look at the squad and obviously the players are fresh, but I’ve also got to keep the players fresh for what’s coming up in the second half of the season, so I’m trying to get them in the right condition.
I’m looking forward to the second half of the season at West Ham United.
We’ve got European football, and big games through the Europa League. We’ve got really big games in the Premier League for us to stay with the top teams.
If we can get a good run in the FA Cup… We beat Manchester United and Manchester City in the Carabao Cup, and just couldn’t get past Tottenham Hotspur in the quarter-finals.
We have to try and have good runs in the Cup, get closer to finals and, hopefully, win them.