West Ham United manager David Moyes spoke to the media at length on Friday afternoon ahead of Saturday's Premier League clash against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux.
The Hammers head to Wolves knowing if either side lose that match, they are guaranteed to be in the relegation zone at the end of it.
Here is every word David Moyes said on transfers, links with Youssef En-Nesyri, the futures of Michail Antonio and Craig Dawson, Wolves, Sebastien Haller and more.
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What is the latest on transfers? Is there anything close for fans to get excited about?
No, not at the moment. We’ve said in the summer we’d do most of our business then. We might try and do something in January if the right player becomes available but at the moment we’re going with what we’ve got.
What is the latest on your interest in Youssef En-Nesyri?
He’s a player we’ve been looking at for a few years, not just recently, but I don’t think he’s coming to West Ham, no.
What is the latest on Craig Dawson’s future?
I don’t know but we’ve had an offer from Wolves. At the moment, we’ve not accepted it. That’s about as much as we can tell you. No idea, not at the moment.
Michail Antonio has also been linked with Wolves. Has any form of bid come in for him?
We’ve had no offer and no enquiry so I don’t know where that’s grown legs from. Nevertheless, Mick’s really important for us. I think he’s got a two-year contract so he’s here for a while.
How pleasing was it to record a victory over Brentford in the FA Cup last Saturday?
It was a terrific result for us because Brentford’s not an easy place to go and win, as all teams have proved. We found it hard against them in the league the week before as well. We’re pleased. We want to be in the cup competitions, we’re in a European competition, so long may that continue.
Do you think Julien Lopetegui has changed anything since becoming Wolves manager?
I think Wolves have always been a good team, they’ve had some really good players in their line-up over many years. We played against him last year when he was manager of Sevilla, so we’ve got an idea of his traits and what his style was then. We see little bits of it at the moment. They’re beginning to grow, they look as if they’re making a few signings as well so they’re trying to add to what they’re doing. It’s always been a difficult game at Wolves.
Can you be encouraged by the fact they’ve only scored five goals at home in the Premier League this season?
Always when you get told that you’re worried about it because you’re hoping their luck doesn’t change. We’ve got to try and make sure we keep them out, score goals ourselves, and try to pick up all three points.
Do you see this season’s drop off as similar to spells you had at Everton?
I think it happens quite often. You see teams win the Premier League and find it difficult to do it back-to-back. It’s only just recently happened but it’s not been something that happens often. I think for clubs like ourselves, and even in my time at Everton, while you’re growing and trying to improve, bringing in new players and quite a bit of movement, it can take quite a bit of time. I remember the period really well: we finished fourth, ended up with a playoff game in the Champions League and couldn’t quite get through against Villarreal. But it happens, sometimes it can be difficult the following season to go again. We’ve had two, or two-and-a-half really good years. We’re just finding it a bit tougher this year. I said at the start when I came in here, it quite often happens where if you think it’s one way and you can just keep going up all the time, it’s very difficult to do that. That’s when you need a bit of patience, you need people to stick with you when it’s not quite so good and you have to say that’s just the way it is when you’re building. Unless you have so much money that you can just go and buy everything you need every year in every window, when you’re not a club like that you need to build a team and it goes stage by stage.
Do your next couple of games now constitute a really pivotal point in the season?
It’s an opportunity for all the teams, isn’t it, it’s not just us. I’m sure they’ll be asking the same questions at the Everton press conference and asking the same at the Wolves press conference. It’s a great opportunity for us and we have to try and take it.
A lot of your in game statistics are similar, if not better, than they were last season. Do you look at that and think that you are doing okay?
We have looked at it and we agree with what you’re saying. We see a lot of the stuff, there’s been very little fluctuation from last year to this year, the difference is we’ve not scored the goals this year. Last year, we opened the season in really good form, the pre-season before our last one we won just about won every game, scored and we’re into it. When you look at this pre-season, we didn’t do that, we missed big chances and it’s sort of malaised into the Premier League at the start of the season and we’ve struggled with it, whether it was scoring penalty kicks, whether it was getting goals at Nottingham Forest right at the start of the season, we just couldn’t get it. It’s been a little bit of a continuation of that so that’s really been the biggest department where we’ve not sort of achieved and we need to get back to it.
Is that one of the biggest frustrations about being a manager?
Yes. We know we are in control of it really, as coaches and as managers, we take responsibility for it so we’re supporting the players, trying to give them as much confidence as we can but either our wins, we’re winning narrowly. Last week, we shot from outside of the box, it was a screamer, so we’ll need to find ways of scoring more goals and maybe creating more than what we were doing last season.
Have you picked up on conceding your last four goals from throw ins?
We do pick up on it. We were really disappointed with it, certainly the two in the league game against Brentford, we were incredibly disappointed. Then obviously we had it the same as well in the other game as well at Arsenal so we were really disappointed with that.
Are you starting to see Nayef Aguerd as a regular starter now?
Yes, you’ve got to remember he’s played one full Premier League game, maybe two possibly, so it’s really early days for him. We would’ve hoped by now that he would have had the best part of 15 or 20 games under his belt. Obviously because of his injuries, we’ve not been able to do so. He’s getting used to it now but I still believe it will take a while for him to get up to speed completely but I think it’s the same for nearly all of the players joining the Premier League at the moment, it’s taking them a little bit of time to settle in.
Would you prefer to have someone in before potentially letting Craig Dawson go?
We’ve got four other centre halves so we’re pretty well covered in that area and at the moment, we’ve not said that we are doing anything and we’ve not said that we’re not. We’re just telling you that we’ve had an offer.
After your last two results, do you think you are starting to turn a corner?
I think we have been, at the start of the year we said, ‘look, let’s get a New Year going,’ and we’ve started the New Year pretty well. We’ve got to start to try and keep that going. I ended up a wee bit disappointed we only drew at Leeds United, but it’s great that we won in what was a really difficult game going to Brentford and winning with the way they are playing at the moment and what they are doing. It was a good result for us to get through in the cup. At the moment, the supporters have got something to cheer about with a couple of cup competitions to be looking forward to in the second half of the season. Now, we need to do the job in the league and get ourselves in a much healthier position than we’re in at the moment.
Do you get the sense at the moment that these are games that you cannot lose?
Yes. I think we’ve got six games in January and I think five have been away and we’ve had one at home. It’s very rare you get a level where you get the amount of away games we’ve got. We’ve been away to Leeds, away to Wolves, we’ve been away to Brentford in the cup, away to Arsenal recently, so we’ve had a real bundle of games away from home. From that point of view, hopefully we can keep picking up the points away from home, we’ve got to pick up something if we can and hopefully, when we get back to the London Stadium in the coming weeks, we will be able to show it.
How pleased are you to see your former player Sebastien Haller return to training after being diagnosed with testicular cancer six months ago?
I don’t have any words of advice regarding their illness or what they’ve had but I have to say, I’m really pleased. Seb was a great lad and I really enjoyed working with him. It was incredibly sad, he just got his move, he’d done so well when he was at Ajax and got his move to Germany so I’m just hoping that he makes a full recovery. Alan Stubbs made a full recovery and was able to play and went on to have a long career, so I’m hoping Seb does the same.
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