West Ham United boss David Moyes spoke to the media following his side’s 2-1 win over Anderlecht at the London Stadium.
Goals in the first half from Said Benrahma and Jarrod Bowen secured three points and a place in the knockout rounds of the Europa Conference League, with the Hammers now only needing a point from their last two group games to secure top spot. A late penalty from Sebastiano Esposito appeared to be no more than a consolation goal.
Here is every word Moyes said on the win, crowd trouble during the game, Bowen and more.
READ MORE: West Ham player ratings: Benrahma and Bowen goals seal Anderlecht win and Europe progression
Anderlecht’s press officer apologised for the club’s behaviour in the stand. What are your thoughts on that?
It’s very good of the club to come out and say it. Big credit to them. They are a really good football club, Anderlecht, I’m sure they want to protect their own club and rightly so.
What is the latest on the injuries to Angelo Ogbonna and Craig Dawson?
Ogbonna I think has got a tight hamstring, Craig Dawson had a dead leg which he actually got on [Sunday], that’s why he didn’t start tonight. He came on and got it in the same part again so we just didn’t take any risk with it.
You recently told Jarrod Bowen that he is a run of goals away from England’s World Cup squad. How pleased have you been with him since then?
He’s getting much closer and I think he’s looking closer back to exactly what he was last year, looks a threat. Every time we play him I think he’s a threat and at the moment, he’s getting closer to scoring those goals. He has scored a penalty kick as well, so he’s starting to do a lot better.
How pleased are you to be in the knockout rounds?
I’m really pleased we’ve done it because you have to win the games and you have to do all of the prep and get everybody ready for them and we’ve done that, so we’re really pleased we’ve qualified for Europe. The big thing is always to be in Europe again after Christmas if you can. Obviously the form of Silkeborg at the minute looks a problem, the goals they are scoring. I think we need a point still to be winners of the group, hopefully we can do that. Winning tonight was important, we deserved a win. We just made it much harder for ourselves than it should have been.
Was Said Benrahma’s goal and performance a step in the right direction?
I thought Said done a lot of good things tonight, he obviously scored a free-kick. He had moments when we needed him to pick people out and he got people away, pick people out in the box to get them a goal. He picked out Fornals in the second half when he could’ve made it 3-0, that was good. There was a lot of good things from Said tonight.
Did you see a flare being thrown by the Anderlecht fans into the home end and were you shocked?
I didn’t, I did see something moving. The truth was, I didn’t have any interest to be honest and I don’t think anybody should have interest. I don’t think it’s one of these things we want to talk because what, are we going to draw more attention to it?
Jarrod Bowen is now the club’s joint all-time top scorer in Europe with David Cross and Johnny Byrne, how pleasing is that?
It certainly is because whatever you say, it is still very good. Maybe the more European games now, maybe the extra competitions like this one we are in, whereas the others in those days didn’t have them. I think it wasn’t groups in the European Cup or the Cup Winners’ Cup if my memory serves me back right. It was knockouts, so maybe that is half the reason. But let’s be fair, it’s still a good thing to have and hopefully, he can score a few more.
Was it difficult for the players to play on at the end with everything else going on?
No, I think everybody’s focus gets taken away when there’s crowd trouble in some way. The players’ job is to get on with it and I thought they did. The more we look at it, we don’t want any trouble. We are in a different society, a different world now and it’s not what any football club wants to have connected to them and I certainly don’t want that at half-time.
Was Ben Johnson aggrieved at the penalty he perhaps harshly gave away?
I thought it looked a really poor decision.
Was he aware that there was no VAR, as he appeared to ask for a check?
I didn’t know that myself, but I’ll be reminding him now.
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