Moysie must get the right answers to this poser

By CandH’s top blogger Allen Cummings

David Moyes can take a break from the challenges of life in the Premier League when he travels with his West Ham side to face Stockport County in an FA Cup third round tie next Monday.

The pressures of ensuring the Hammers maintain their current form and preserve their place in the top flight in these unprecedented times has been, and will continue to be, immense for the manager.

The trip to Edgeley Park offers a different type of challenge, but one that Moyes will be all too aware is just as testing!

The fact that BT Sport have chosen this tie as their Monday night game says it all. They aren’t there as a charitable gesture to bolster The Hatters coffers with some much needed TV cash. Make no mistake BT are there in the hope of witnessing a Cup upset. West Ham are the bait

The first challenge for Moyes will be over his team selection for the game, a positive minefield awaiting him. He will be aware West Ham supporters are desperate for a Cup run, after some pretty barren years. There will be plenty calling for the manager to put out his strongest possible starting 11, insisting he should treat the game just like a Premier League fixture.

But he will also be aware his most influential senior players have just come through a gruelling Christmas fixture schedule amid an already condensed and hectic season. Players’ bodies are under severe pressure.

Yes they are meant to be elite athletes – but they are also only human. They can suffer from work overload like anybody else. I’m not making excuses for them – simply stating facts.

Moyes has to decide if some need a breather – a chance to recharge those batteries and protect weary limbs for the important games yet to come. He certainly won’t be the only Premier League manager wrestling with the same problem.

I don’t expect David to do what BFS did against Nottingham Forest in 2014 and fill the team with youngsters. But I do expect him to take the opportunity to rest a few of his key players – even if they do their ‘resting’ from the subs bench.

To use players like Darren Randolph, Andriy Yarmolenko, Manuel Lanzini, Robert Snodgrass, Ben Johnson, Ryan Fredericks, Issa Diop and of course Mark Noble would hardly be akin to throwing in the kids.

As we all know to our cost, West Ham have been victims of cup upsets before, and in all honesty those embarrassments haven’t been because respective managers have purposely sent out weakened teams.

Defeats at the hands of Torquay United, Tranmere Rovers, Wrexham, Grimsby Town and Luton, to name but a few, have all come with regular first team players in the line-up.

It’s not necessarily about fielding your top players, it’s more about getting the attitude right, no matter who plays. If David Moyes can send his players out with the right mindset, whoever they are, the result shouldn’t be in doubt.