A reasonably happy David Moyes spoke to the media last night following the Hammers’ narrow 2-1 win over AZ Alkmaar and was only reasonably happy with the outcome.
He of course believes the game to be only evenly balance but that if it was the other way around he would still be claiming much the same.
Obviously AZ will be thinking much the same and with the home tie to come remain firmly in the tie.
The Hammers should surely remember though that they dominated possession for long periods and were rarely hurt in the final third by an enthusiastic and hard working AZ outfit.
However, the spirit and upgrade in recent form gives us probably a better than evens chance of reaching the final with the obvious incentive defeat at this stage in the Europa Cup last year.
Speaking after the game the manager was keen to give no false impression saying: “I am pleased, we got ourselves in front, which in the tie, was a big thing to try and be at least in front if you can.
It was a difficult night. We have learned some lessons over the years, well we hope we have. It is very difficult when you think that you are maybe not quite getting the rub of the green.
Recently, when watching West Ham, you would see that at the moment. We’ve got a slightly narrow lead, but nothing more at this time.”
He was asked if when AZ Alkmaar led whether memories of Eintracht Frankfurt went through his mind and he added: “No. When I got to half-time, I still felt as if there were three quarters of the game to go, so there was plenty of time to try and turn things around.
We had to make sure that we picked up. We did so, our decision making in the first half, especially in the first half, was so poor. Our hold up play didn’t really allow us to create more opportunities. Second half, we got a little bit better and it gave us a chance to get a goal or two.”
He couldn’t understand why it took so long for a penalty to be given for the equaliser saying: “I thought the referee have given it and I didn’t have a chance to see it.
I thought he was maybe looking to see if it was a yellow or a red card. I really have no idea what the delay was on. He held his nerve, finished the penalty off, but he had a great chance to finish another one off later on, which was much easier.”
He added that the most satisfying was that the team showed discipline and not get red cards, despite decisions going against them
He said: “100%, because there was a little period where it was just starting to get out of hand. It is really important that we told the players and we hope we learned a little bit from it.
It is a big, emotional game. People would be disappointed if you didn’t see your players fight for everything. Tonight, the players did, they fought for everything but we played a bit too excitedly in the first 20 minutes.
We didn’t show any calmness in the final third, which meant it was very difficult for us to get that moment maybe we could have got a goal from.
He revealed that Michail Antonio’s goal came just in time to avoid being replaced by Danny Ings.
He said: “I was going to change him for Danny Ings. I felt we just needed another, different way at the end. Maybe if it had have been five minutes earlier, I might have taken him off.
Generally, I hugely believe we’ve got a big resilience here. I think we have it through the club, I think we have it through the team and we’ll need it. We’ve needed it in the big games in the Premier League.
We’re just off a big win against Manchester United. Tonight, we’ve won 2-1 in a semi-final of a first leg, so you’d have to say that’s okay.
“When it’s a cup competition, it doesn’t matter how you do it really and the job is to get it done. We’ve not got it done yet, far from it, we’ve got a big job to do next week.”