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David Moyes hopes that 2021 will get the best possible start when West Ham United travel to Goodison Park to face high-flying Everton on New Years Day.
The manager spent more than eleven seasons in charge of the Toffees early in his career, but acknowledges that there is little room for sentiment as the Hammers attempt to get back on the winning track in the Premier League on Friday night.
In his virtual pre-game press conference, Moyes spoke about the challenge his team faces in Merseyside, forward Michail Antonio’s return from injury, and the significant progress made during his second term in charge of West Ham, having returned to the Club just over a year. a year ago now, at the end of December 2019 …
It’s a really tough game, going to Goodison Park. It always has been over the years.
It has never been an easy place for a team to win. I really enjoyed having that behind me when I was there. [managing Everton].
They have an exciting team. Everton are now trying to compete at the top end so it will be a really tough game for us.
I don’t know how often it will happen in the future that coaches have the opportunity to spend eleven and a half years at a club, but my club now is West Ham. Now I’m going to Goodison to win for West Ham. That is my job and I will do my best to do it.
I will never take my memories away from Everton. Probably the best thing about me was the players during my time there – I had great players, it was great to work with them, really good characters and I really enjoyed my time there.
We have to handle the return of Michail Antonio carefully.
I thought that even with the little details when Michail showed up [against Southampton for the final 15 minutes] made a little difference.
He gave us something, but he probably has to accept it little by little. We’re not sure how much we can get out of it and I hate losing it to another injury.
At the moment, we have fixed ourselves a bit and have not been so fluid without him in the team.
It has been a very good first year at West Ham United in football terms.
When I arrived this time, it felt a lot more difficult to stay in the Premier League, which had a lot to do with the quality of the other teams when you look at the teams that fell last year.
Then from that, I had to take advantage of it and pick us up, so it was good for me. I wanted to go back and prove that I was the right man to do the job, so that gave me a lot of pleasure.
Probably the greatest pleasure has been seeing how the team has evolved. It’s really hard to explain this, but now we have an atmosphere in training ground that I haven’t seen before.
We have committed, determined players, fighting for each other, and I want to improve that, but the only way I can do that is by getting better results and better results and trying to play better.
We’re doing that, maybe not in the last month or so where our game hasn’t been as good as before, but we’re still getting good results on the road and on our journey.
