West Ham saw their three match unbeaten run come to an end last night, as Danny Welbeck’s first-half goal saw the Hammers knocked out of the Carabao Cup at the quarter-final stage.
David Moyes has led a valiant side out of the Premier League’s relegation zone with a fine string of results in recent weeks, beating Chelsea and Stoke City either side of a goalless draw with Arsenal, but couldn’t transfer that form into the domestic cup competition.
It’s a blow for the Hammers, who had aspirations of reaching the semi-finals, but it allows them to focus on their Premier League survival- with a crucial game coming up this weekend against fellow relegation battlers Newcastle United.
A lot of expectation lies upon the Hammers and the January transfer window is set to be significant, with Moyes stating he’s looking to add quality to his side. Speaking after the defeat at the Emirates Stadium, he said:
“We are making steady progress. We need to add quality, you could see that tonight, but you wouldn’t question our honesty and determination. We were organised and made it difficult for Arsenal.”
“I think we have been making progress and winning games and we’ve been well organised and hard to play against. We showed that again tonight. But what we’re seeing as we go along is the next step is adding quality. Tonight we were short on midfield players and generally we’re short in that area and we could do with adding a little more craft.”
“It’s an area we’re short at the moment. But January is never the easiest month to deal with. It was great young Dom played well and Declan Rice got a good game, so we have to develop our own players too. But we just lacked a bit of quality tonight at different times.”
