West Ham United boss David Moyes has delivered his verdict on Maxwel Cornet’s debut for the Hammers on Thursday night.
The Ivory Coast international, who signed from Burnley for £17.5million earlier this month, made his full debut against Danish side Viborg on Thursday night in the first leg of Moyes’ side’s Europa Conference League play-off qualifying round clash. The Irons won 3-1 with Cornet assisting the opening goal for fellow debutant Gianluca Scamacca with a clever twist past his marker before crossing.
However, while Moyes was pleased with that particular contribution, he thought he should have done more to stop the visitors from pulling a goal back through Jakob Bonde. He added that Cornet, among with some of the club’s other signings so far this summer, will need to be allowed time to adapt before they reach their peak.
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“I thought he done okay,” Moyes told football.London. “I didn’t like his contribution in the goal we lost. Again, we’ve got to give some people a little bit of time to settle.
“We need people with goals and assists so Maxi getting an assist last night was really important to us, Said (Benrahma) getting another assist last night. Players we’re bringing in, that’s what we’re getting them in for, to assist or score the goals.
“Last night, the ones who you would think are maybe our goalscorers have got all the goals last night which hopefully, gives them a bit more confidence. Said assisted in one, Maxwel assisted in one so I take positives in that last night.”
During the game, Scamacca, Jarrod Bowen and Michail Antonio got the goals. For Moyes, that is the three players he highlights as the club’s primary goal threats, with Bowen and Antonio the team’s two top scorers last term and the club paying £30.5m for Scamacca off the back of a brilliant campaign with Sassuolo where he scored 16 league goals in Serie A.
Prior to beating Viborg, the Hammers had not registered a single point or scored a goal in either of their opening two Premier League games against Manchester City and Nottingham Forest.
For Moyes, while he was frustrated against Forest at the fact he did not score, he felt the best chances did not fall to the club’s primary attackers, something that did please him against Viborg, with Scamacca, Bowen and Antonio all taking their key chances.
“Yes, because we probably could have scored two or three in the game in different ways,” added Moyes.
“If I’m being honest, Tomas Soucek probably ended up with the biggest chances in the game at Notts Forest, Declan Rice, but in this game then, we started to get our forward players a bit more opportunities and our attacking players made more assists as well.
“We will look at that and hopefully, it will just give them that little bit of confidence to go on and do it in the next game.”
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