David Moyes has called Brighton a model club as he plots a way to overcome West Ham’s “bogey team” on Saturday.
The Seagulls have not lost to West Ham since their promotion in 2017 and Roberto De Zerbi’s side will continue their push for Europe when Moyes’ team head south to the Amex on Saturday looking to ease their own relegation worries.
Brighton have not blinked since the exit of Graham Potter early in the season, and sit in eighth place with games in hand on the teams above them going into the weekend.
“I think we’ve all been impressed with Brighton over many years because of their build, their model,” Moyes said.
“I think there are models throughout Europe which are interesting and exciting to look at. I always talk about the Red Bull model and how well they’ve done it with their clubs.
“I don’t know how many years they’ve been at it for, maybe 10 years now, Brighton, you see the players they’ve bought in are younger.
“They’ve been able to go out and buy young players who are maybe not ready, give them a few years before they put them in the team and they’ve got so many good young players coming through now.
“Credit to Brighton as a football club and how they’ve done it. Not everybody does it the same, but how Brighton are doing it is a very good job.
“Brighton have been a bit of a bogey team for us, so we need to try and overcome that. Our away form has been disappointing, but we’ve had draws away at Newcastle and Leeds United.”
There was another defeat on the road for West Ham in midweek as their FA Cup run came to an end in a 3-1 loss to Manchester United.
Said Benrahma had given the Hammers a second-half lead but they capitulated late on with defending branded “shocking, absolutely useless” by Roy Keane on ITV.
“Roy was correct as far as the defence went, we were poor in the later part of the game,” said Moyes, whose side are only two points above the drop zone.
“In recent weeks, we just got a clean sheet against Nottingham Forest and we’ve defended pretty well for most parts of the season, it’s probably one of our strongest areas, even though we agree it has to be better. I totally agree in the last five or 10 minutes, it was not that good.
“I used to use the word flaky here at West Ham, I’ve got rid of it in the last few years but we certainly were for the last 15 minutes. It’s no point being that, coming and turning up only to do that at the end.”
West Ham return to Europa League action next week with the first leg of their last-16 tie against AEK Larnaca, giving Moyes another headache in terms of scheduling.
“It’s not an easy thing when you play Thursday-Sunday, of course,” he said. “I don’t think the Premier League has helped putting this game on a Saturday after the cup tie on Wednesday, but we turn up and we play.
“But we’re looking forward to the Thursday-Sundays because it means we’re competing in Europe.”
