David Moyes believes the mood around the squad has remained buoyant and puts that down to European success…at least to some extent.
With Manchester United arriving tomorrow evening the lads will need to remain in such a position as Moyes explained when answering reporters questions.
He said: “Yes the mood has been good, I think European football has kept everybody buoyant, it has kept our heads above the water.
I think it’s always going to distract us, as we are in another European semi-final and still have league games to win.
I think we felt this a little bit in the early stages of the knock-out rounds in Cyprus and Gent, we had the same situations where we’ve had quick turnarounds.
The kick-off time against Manchester United being 7pm on a Sunday isn’t exactly going to help us when it comes to our preparations for our game on a Thursday.
The good spirit in the camp is vital now we’re into the business end of this tough season. Can’t ever remember there being such an incredible fixture pileup for West Ham as there has been this season. I remember talk of 12 games in 45 days right before the World Cup and afterwards it’s not been much better. We seem to have been playing three games a week for ever. Three or four days between games. We’ve had injuries and then on top of that we get sickness spreading through the camp. If we’ve got players not at full fitness against Manchester United it’s going to be a very tough 90 minutes. We’ve played so many games where we’ve had days less than our opponents to recover and prepare. This time I thought we would get an extra day than Man U to prepare but then it’s a late kick off which obviously helps Man U giving them more time to recover from there last game and hinders us by giving us less time before European gane. Hopefully Moyes can use that to set up an us against the world mood prior to the Nan u and European games. I’m hopeful we’ll still win both. it’s going to be tough but If we manage it it will be down to the spirit in the camp that sees us through.