Mark Lawrenson has been speaking on the latest installment of the OTB Football podcast, where he claimed David Moyes would still be happy with a Europa League spot at the end of the season.
The Hammers have enjoyed a fabulous campaign under the former Manchester United boss and are currently sitting just five points behind fourth-placed Leicester City.
However, with only three games left of the Premier League campaign left to play, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that they will qualify for next season’s Champions League.
Nevertheless, a top-six finish would represent an impressive and certainly rare result for West Ham, and the former Liverpool defender Lawrenson has revealed how Moyes will be content with playing in Europe’s secondary competition after being in close contact with the Scotsman.
He said: (0:40) “Yeah, I speak to him on a regular basis. I don’t think he’s necessarily devastated, but he was always worried about this game because they won the original fixture didn’t they at Goodison when he took West Ham back there, and he said; ‘it’s a real tricky one’.
“And he said everyone keeps saying to me, ‘Oh, you know you’ve beat Everton and the rest of your fixtures look relatively easy,’ but it’s not the way that the Premier League is and Everton away from home are a completely different animal to how they are at home, and I was listening obviously to the bit on Seamus Coleman. If you remember he played as well at Liverpool in the derby, in that particular position, as he did yesterday. So, massive credit to him.
“I think the thing with David Moyes, he knows he’s up against it to finish fourth, but it’ll be Europa League, which for West Ham, obviously if he’d said at the start of the season, sat down with the two owners and he said, by the way, we’ll get definitely Europa League, they’d have snapped your hand off, I think.”
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TIF Thoughts on West Ham’s season…
West Ham have defied everyone’s expectations throughout 2020/21, with some even tipping them for relegation on the eve of the current campaign.
The likes of Angelo Ogbonna, Declan Rice, Jesse Lingard and Michail Antonio have showered themselves in glory this season, putting in a string of fabulous performances that have propelled the Hammers up the top-flight table.
However, it’s arguably Moyes who deserves the most credit. The 58-year-old has revitalised his career after difficult stints at Manchester United, Real Sociedad and Sunderland, and qualifying for the Europa League would still be a wonderful achievement.
In other news: ‘I’m totally not convinced’ – BBC pundit drops damning Klopp and Liverpool verdict