David Moyes joked he would have no trouble emulating Erik ten Hag and engaging in some “dad dancing” were he to lead West Ham to FA Cup glory this season, as the Hammers set their sights on continuing their run by beating Manchester United tomorrow night.
Having knocked out Brentford and Derby on the road so far in the competition, the Irons are looking to book a quarter-final place as they travel to Old Trafford to take on Ten Hag’s in-form side.
United are on a high after lifting the season’s first silverware in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final victory over Newcastle and have a return to Wembley on the agenda as they seek to use that triumph as a springboard, having ended a near-six-year trophy drought.
Ten Hag marked his first success since taking charge by joining South American stars Antony and Lisandro Martinez in a celebratory jig, a tradition retained from the trio’s time together at Dutch giants Ajax.
Asked whether he would partake in a similar ritual with Brazilian midfielder Lucas Paqueta were West Ham to lift the cup at Wembley on June 3, Moyes said: “I certainly would, yeah!”
“I certainly would, don’t worry, if I win a trophy, I will be flipping dad dancing and everything.”
Meanwhile, Moyes revealed that West Ham failed in a bid to get the weekend’s Premier League visit to Brighton moved back 24 hours.
The two teams are due to meet at the Amex on Saturday afternoon, when West Ham will be looking to build on the 4-0 victory over Nottingham Forest that lifted the club out of the relegation zone last weekend.
The Seagulls were in FA Cup action at Stoke City on Tuesday night and as such have a day longer to recover ahead of the game, though the Saturday fixture does give the Hammers a longer break before their trip to Cyprus to play AEK Larnaca in the Europa Conference League next Thursday.
“It’s a very quick turnaround,” Moyes said. “If you look at our fixtures, we have to go to Old Trafford away from home and unfortunately, we didn’t get our game at Brighton moved to the Sunday, which would have helped us greatly.
“It makes it very difficult, an eight o’clock kick-off at Old Trafford on a Wednesday, and then we’re away to Brighton on Saturday. Then, we have to go away to Cyprus. We’ve got three away games in a week now, all with a decent amount of travel.”
He added: “We tried when we knew the fixture, when we got the draw. United play on Sunday [against Liverpool]. I know they had just played Sunday so they are saying we have an extra day’s recovery on them for this game.
“Our thinking was we couldn’t see much reason why our game couldn’t have been changed to the Sunday. I know a while back we did have a look to see if it could be moved.”
