I’m a United man
MOYES: I’VE PULLED HAMMERS TOGETHER TO BUILD A TEAM TO BEAT DROP & PUSH FOR EUROPE
DAVID MOYES is united through and through... not Manchester, but West Ham.
The former Old Trafford boss has worked hard in east London to turn the Hammers into an iron-clad side.
And the result sees Moyes and his men competing for a top-four spot in the Premier League plus a place in the Europa League semi-finals.
Moyes has pulled his side together and made them a team to fear at home and abroad.
He said: “I can build clubs, I can take them in the right direction. I can get them playing at a level.
“At Everton, over 10 or 11 years, most of my teams were challenging in the top six, seven or eight every year.
“West Ham would like to be a club doing that every year, trying to break into the top four or top six and to be in Europe.
“We’ve moved quickly to being close to that club.
“If we can make it into Europe two years in a row, it would be incredible.”
Moyes, whose side travel to Lyon on Thursday with their
Europa League quarter-final poised at 1-1, is urging caution over the Irons’ remarkable and rapid rise up the ladder.
Ahead of today’s trip to Brentford, the 58-year-old Scot added: “We built a team to avoid relegation, to get out of the bottom three.
“With a near-enough similar group, we’re now in the Europa League and competing in the top six.
“The distance and journey we’ve come, and the difference in the style needed to avoid relegation to the style needed to get to a semi-final of a European competition was noticeable in midweek.
“We need to play much, much better. Technically, we need to be much, much better.
“It gave me a chance to see that we’re on a good road, making good progress but, genuinely, we’ve got a distance to go to be consistently there.”
Another man who has come a long way this season is Thomas Frank.
The Dane (above) is having a solid second year in the top flight with Brentford midtable with the highlight being a big win over neighbours Chelsea.
But while Frank knows he can’t take his eye off the ball, it’s equally important to relax.
Last week, he went to the cinema with his daughter to see the new Marvel film Morbius.
Frank said: “At that moment I was focused on the film. A lot of other times in normal life, things are popping into my head.
“I do my best to try and switch off at the end of each season – it is healthy to do other things.
“It is constantly on my mind, you need to speak to players and staff – it is constantly on! That is why your head is spinning.
“Now we have West
Ham to play and I admire them as a club, their history is massive – although Bees fans are the best in the world, obviously!
“They’ve embraced their new stadium more recently and that’s what we’ve done. They are aiming for Europe every season. I think we’re far off that now, but we can dream.
“If you’ve followed us for a few years, you would have seen that we’ve built step by step, adding a bit more after we lost the playoff final.”