(Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)
It would be hard to find anybody in football more realistic than David Moyes.
Whilst fans and pundits combined can’t praise his achievements this season highly enough, he seems to believe he has a long way to go at West Ham.
But he has pointed to the match against Burnley as being closer to what he wants from his aspiring Hammers.
It’s so good to hear him praising the hood bits but drawing attenion to the drawbacks he is seeing and how he wants them improved.
Speaking to reporters he said: “I keep saying there is progress to be made. We have got so much better to come, so much room to improve.
I think a bit of what you saw the other night is what I’m talking about: the improvement and how I want it to look going forward.
We will not always play as well, we might not always work the way we want it to work, but there is a way I want us to play. I want us to be attacking, I want us to try to score as many goals as we can.
But in the same breath when you are a team in the PL that has been bobbing around third and fourth bottom in the league for the last couple of years, it is very difficult to turn it into something different.
It has taken a bit of time but I think recently in a lot of games we have been winning 3-0 and teams get back to 3-2.
Our scoring goals has improved greatly and our attacking ambition has become much better. We had great opportunities the other night to score more goals and we did not take them.
I thought we played like a top side the other night. Our football was good. What we did not do like a top side was finish the game off earlier, but we did an awful lot of good things and we are trying to get better at it.
There is so much room for improvement, and I still think that. For example our passing was a lot better but our finishing was not good enough, so we need to now find a way of making that a bit better.
We had a few scary moments when maybe we should have been able to deal with them better. All those bits of the jigsaw we can try to improve on.”
Concentrate on the practice. Keep it instinctive. Don’t be deliberate. Don’t think too much – just do it. First look is forward before the ball is at feet. Then first move is forward. Makes it easier for our players to anticipate the move. Then just get on with it. That’s what we’ve been doing so well this season. We are more predictable when holding, waiting and looking around. That was the ‘old’ West Ham way of the last years. Now we’re exciting and everyone is enjoying our game. Some days all the chances go in – brilliant. Sometimes it doesn’t happen, but we still need to make the chances. We don’t make chances playing back to the goalkeeper. Keep up the fantastic work Wee Davey. Don’t know how far we can go (others have their own say in that) but we are with you all the way.
COYI
Agree & hopefully we start to approach the usual top 6 ‘big’ teams that what too. Next season hopefully 4231 it’s what will will mainly play not back 5. Tbh I think it we played like that againt some of the ‘bigger’ teams we’d have a few more points. We definitely could of scored 5+ but at least we are creating chances instead of games where we had 20% possession & 1 shot. Though I’m not against counter attack & having lower possession when we attack but I enjoy being able to pass the ball around & set tempo.
Considering we don’t have an out & our striker that’s played there for years is Massive. Antonio has always imo been huge to us & played as striker in Championship & for is before but usually as cover or in 2 not on his own. He has adapted so well, I think his technique hold up etc has gotten much better & is finishing but he has learned it & still getting better. If we add a natural Finisher playing like this wow! Armstrong I’d love tbh I think if he played for Brentford he would have more goals then Toney. He just lacks height but doing it for a 15th placed club is amazing & his pace plus work rate is amazing. Plus is dangerous from outside box. They want £20m plus supposedly but with a year left think £15m is fair. Think we will be priced out of Toney £35m but I’d take the Clark-Harris who has bested Toney’s record for Posh this season as a second striker. He could be a Vardy never played in too flight 26 leads line 6′ a handful.
EFL has been amazing Barnsley wow, I take Mowatt on a free in a min for CM competition & ofc Dike looks built for PL. What a last day, anyway ramble over.
Moyes has adopted changed his game & hopefully he see us over Everton again!
Well said Taffy!