David Moyes looks to get back to winning tactics on the European front when Olympiacos visits the London Stadium on Thursday night.
The Hammers, after setting an English record for consecutive defeats in European competitions, saw their run come to an end in Piraeus two weeks ago against the Greek Super League side.
Despite the 2-1 defeat, Moyes’ Irons remain top of UEFA Europa League Group A with six draws from three games played, and Thursday’s win will allow the Premier League to follow its own destiny on the continent.
While Moyes is aware of the risk Olympiacos will pose to his team, the manager is confident that West Ham can claim victory in front of a raucous crowd in east London.
We’re still waiting a little bit for Kurt Zouma. No I worked out on Wednesday morning but a little bit indoors, so let’s see Kurt and see how he’s doing.
We don’t play with just 11 players anymore. We have a team of players and we have to settle for this being an integral component of football. We have to replace our team to keep players compatible and available, and we have an incredibly busy schedule.
We will continue to do this and it has worked for us in recent years.
We are just shy of England’s record of 17 games unbeaten in Europe and I would have accepted it a few years ago. Hopefully we can make up for the loss in our game on Thursday night.
I’m looking for a much better night. We need to make sure we’re still in Europe after Christmas and I think if we can win the night, we’ll be moving towards that goal for the third year in a row.
Olympiacos is a European team with a lot of experience. I saw them play a few years ago against Arsenal and they’re a talented team. We’re up against a smart team and I think our organization this year is the toughest we’ve had in our 3 years. We’re going to have to play well.
We had some difficult and demanding situations at Olympiacos. The crowd was phenomenal and played a huge role. I also have to be fair and say that we didn’t play well and were far from our general criteria or levels.
I don’t think the defeat has taught us anything we didn’t already know. They have some talented players and we also knew what the atmosphere would be like. We’re up against one of the most productive organisations in Europe that we’ve faced at home on Thursday and I have to say that I think we’re going to have an incredible crowd at the London Stadium for this organising match. I think we will show Olympiacos to our fans in a wonderful way.
We have two home games left, against Olympiacos and Freiburg, so I think we’re in a smart position in the organisation. We’ve been very sensible with the organisation in recent years in Europe and we want to be much better on Thursday than we were. at Olympiacos.
We need to be in the Europa League in the new year. We need to win in the organization and succeed in the knockout phases. Of course, if we finish third in the organisation, we will return to the UEFA Europa Conference League and we did that brilliantly last season. But we have to do well in the Europa League, and lately we are the most sensitive in the organization and we are in a very smart position. The goal is to remain at the top of the organization.
I think, as a coach, you have to be a really smart league team. Being a smart league team means being consistent throughout the year, but we all know that getting to the league is very difficult. Succeeding in the cups is also very important. .
Last year I have to say I needed the cup games, because our league games weren’t smart enough last year. Our cup games kept us going and in the end we won the trophy and had the most productive season in a long time. We have to do well in the league, but we have to do it again.
Jarrod Bowen is happy to play in any position we put him in. We’ve already moved players, like Michail Antonio and Marko Arnautović, and I have in mind that Jarrod can play there. In his early days, he also played a few games for Hull City as a centre-forward.
He played very well in whatever role he played for us and scored a goal this weekend. He kept his purpose and we needed that.
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