Hammer blow as Moyes’ boys look to regroup
West Ham boss David Moyes admits it will be difficult both physically and mentally for his players to switch back into Premier League mode against Fulham.
The Hammers lost 2-0 away to all-conquering Bayer Leverkusen in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final tie on Thursday night.
The tight turnaround now sees them host Fulham in a London derby today, less than 72 hours on from a gruelling contest in Germany.
Moyes knows it will be a tough ask but believes the past two seasons of running deep into European competition could help his squad.
“It’s difficult mentally to get back and get the players ready,” he said.
“Physically you need time to recover, debrief and get things out of the way. I’m not sure you can ever get used to it.
“But we’ve been doing it for three years and we’re getting a bit more used to how we need to feel on the day of the game.
“We have a day or two to recover and be ready for the next game, so we’ll do our best to be ready for Fulham on Sunday.”
Such a congested fixture list also gives West Ham the chance to move on from the defeat in Leverkusen – with the second leg at the London Stadium taking place next week.
“Disappointment is something that comes around in football, but you have the opportunity to put it right in the next game,” added Moyes.
“We had a brilliant win away at Wolves last weekend and now we’re back at home, where we’ve done well for the majority of the season, so I hope we can get another good result at home.
“Every time you win, it builds a little bit of momentum. I thought we did a lot of good things at Leverkusen partly because of what we did at Wolves.
“We’ll always go into a game with hope and things can alter in football very quickly, so hopefully it can change against Leverkusen next week.”
Fulham ran riot against West Ham in December but boss Marco Silva insists that result will be meaningless in the return fixture at London Stadium this weekend.
The Hammers were routed 5-0 at Craven Cottage just days after Fulham had thrashed Nottingham Forest by the same scoreline.
Now Silva is attempting to steer his team out of a rut having won just one of their previous five Premier League matches.
“The result against West Ham is not going to have any impact on Sunday,” Silva said.
“It was a moment that happened.
“OK, credit for ourselves, for our players, the way we did it.
“If it’s difficult to win a football match, imagine winning 5-0 back-to-back.”