‘The tie is very evenly balanced’: David Moyes describes West Ham’s performance as ‘harum-scarum’ and says his team got away with making ‘stupid’ decisions against AZ Alkmaar
David Moyes described West Ham‘s performance as ‘harum-scarum’, saying his team got away with making ‘stupid’ decisions in their come-from-behind Europa Conference League win at the London Stadium last night.
Michail Antonio’s winner arrived in the nick of time as West Ham’s striker was set to be substituted for Danny Ings when the ball next left play. Moyes was thankful they got back into the semi-final first leg but frustrated with how his side performed on a whole against AZ Alkmaar.
‘It was a strange game to analyse,’ Moyes said. ‘We were harum-scarum. We made some stupid decisions, shooting from 30 yards at times and not taking chances. But in the end, I’m happy with the result.’
Alkmaar took a surprise lead, with West Ham’s cup goalkeeper Alphonse Areola letting a soft shot beat him. Though Said Benrahma’s penalty and Antonio’s winner confirmed the comeback, Moyes warned: ‘We’ve got a narrow lead, nothing more than that at this time.
‘The tie is very evenly balanced. If we were losing by a goal, I wouldn’t be in here saying we are out of the time. AZ won’t be saying that either. It is tightly balanced. We didn’t give up too many opportunities, even though we conceded a goal. We’ve got ourselves in front in the tie.’
David Moyes was left frustrated by some of the decisions his side made against AZ Alkmaar
West Ham goalkeeper Alphonse Areola was beaten by a long-range effort in the first half
Michail Antonio completed the comeback after half-time, and Moyes insisted he was happy with the final result ahead of next week’s return leg in the Netherlands
Hinting at the refereeing, Moyes continued: ‘It can be difficult when you think you aren’t getting the rub of the green. But if you’ve been watching West Ham recently, you’ll know we’re used to that!
‘People would be disappointed if you didn’t see your players fighting for everything. The players fought for everything. I hugely believe we’ve got big resilience here. We have it through the club, through the team. We’ll need it. We’ve needed it in the Premier League. We’ve won 2-1 in the semi-final first leg. That’s OK! When it’s a cup competition, it doesn’t matter how you do it.’
Antonio added: ‘We made it difficult for ourselves, we had chances, we just needed to be more clinical. In the end we got the result. We know they’re a possession-based team, they know how to work it. We were like, ‘Alright, we’ll let you have it, and on the counter we’ll damage you’.
‘It dropped on me perfectly (for the winner). I got the goal, we got the win and we move on to next week.’
Alkmaar manager Pascal Jansen said: ‘I’m very confident. If you look at the game, we controlled the main parts. We’re going to give them a hell of a fight in order to get into the final.’
