West Ham United's 2022/23 Premier League campaign may have ended with a 2-1 defeat away at Leicester City on Sunday, but there were still reasons to be positive for Pablo Fornals.
The Hammers No8 scored his seventh strike of an at times challenging campaign to give his side hope of clawing back a deficit conceded to goals either side of the break by Harvey Barnes and Wout Faes.
Although an equaliser ultimately did not arrive, Fornals was pleased to continue his positive momentum, which has seen the Spain midfielder notch three times in his last nine outings, including a superb late UEFA Conference League semi-final second-leg strike at AZ Alkmaar.
West Ham achieved their aim of maintaining their Premier League status with something to spare, and now a shot of glory awaits for Fornals and his teammates when they take on Italian opponents ACF Fiorentina in the Conference League final in Prague, Czechia, on 7 June.
Pablo, let's start with your goal. Similar to in Alkmaar, you took the ball from deep, showed composure and your accurate finishing to score. How do you do it?
“The defenders were closing really so I think that was the only space I could shoot and the ball hit the post and when it happens you never know what can happen, but thanks God it went in.
“At that moment, the only thing you don’t want is someone trying to tackle you or to do a long control and the losing the ball or being caught, so I just went inside with determination and tried to find the angle for my shot.
“I think my job is there. As always, I try, but now we are a team and whoever plays in that game (the final) is going to give one thousand per cent so I know, if it’s not from the beginning, I will help the team in the position the manager asks me.”
As for the game as a whole, we should have got at least a point for our performance, shouldn't we?
“I think [we should have got at least a draw] at Leicester. Without the last ten or 15 minutes of the first half and the isolated goal we conceded in the second half from a free-kick, I think we were the better team on the pitch, but at the end what matters is goals and they scored twice and we scored once.
“But I think we did a very good game and if we play like that in the future games I think we’re going to have a lot of credit from that.”
We finished 14th in the Premier League. We would have wanted better back in August but, when you consider where we were at the mid-season break, is that an OK outcome?
“Obviously, we can’t say anything to the supporters if they’re not happy because obviously we’re not happy as well, but we’re going to play a final and this can change all the job we did in the season so we have to just try to be focused on that and make it possible.”
Now, we have the Conference League final in Prague to look forward to, and the squad is going to a warm-weather training camp for a few days to refresh body and minds. Is that important?
“Hopefully it’s going to help us, I certainly think so, as in the last months we’ve played every three days and most of the lads played Thursday-Sunday-Thursday-Sunday, so obviously it’s going to be a massive relax for us but with a bit of work.
“After this period, we’ll try to prepare for the final as much as we can and be as ready as possible. When you play these kind of games, you don’t need any extra motivation, because when you can win a final as a player it’s massive.”
