David Moyes has issued a stern challenge to his relegation-threatened West Ham side following Sunday’s defeat at Tottenham, telling them: “Let’s see who’s up for the fight”.
The Hammers’ fortunes had seemed to be improving, with last month’s victory over Everton followed by credible draws against Newcastle and Chelsea.
However, after Bournemouth and Everton both won on Saturday, Moyes’ side found themselves back in the bottom-three ahead of kick-off at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and will spend another week there after goals from Emerson Royal and Heung-min Son gave the home side a 2-0 win.
“I told the players that we did a good enough job at times today,” Moyes said. “We had a lapse in defence, it was a terrible pass to allow [Ben] Davies to get on it and it should be easily cut out by the centre-halves.
“We needed to grow into the game. Recently we have not been scoring loads so what you can’t afford to do is concede a goal and we can concede one but the minute they score the second one, we made it doubly difficult.”
West Ham now face a crucial home game against Nottingham Forest next weekend, when anything less than three points will see the crisis that appeared to have been staved off at one stage this month back in full swing.
“Our results are key,” Moyes added. "We keep going, we’ve been feeling better about our performances and even today, we did some things which weren’t good which I agree with. There are bits of it I want to build on and hope that we take it in. The players have been challenged now, let’s see who’s up for the fight.”
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