David Moyes admits West Ham face ‘difficult’ task to be ready for Fulham after Leverkusen loss

West Ham manager David Moyes has confessed that his team may struggle to prepare for their upcoming clash with Fulham.

The Hammers, who suffered a 2-0 defeat against Bayer Leverkusen in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final tie on Thursday night, now face a quick turnaround as they host Fulham in a London derby on Sunday, less than 72 hours after their challenging match in Germany.

Moyes acknowledged the difficulty of this situation during his pre-match press conference, stating: “It’s difficult mentally to get back and get the players ready.

“Physically you need time to recover, debrief and get things out of the way. I’m not sure you can ever get used to it. But we’ve been doing it for three years and we’re getting a bit more used to how we need to feel on the day of the game.

“We have a day or two to recover and be ready for the next game, so we’ll do our best to be ready for Fulham on Sunday.”

The packed fixture list also provides West Ham with an opportunity to bounce back from their defeat in Leverkusen, with the second leg set to take place at the London Stadium next week. “Disappointment is something that comes around in football, but you have the opportunity to put it right in the next game,” added Moyes.

“We had a brilliant win away at Wolves last weekend and now we’re back at home, where we’ve done well for the majority of the season, so I hope we can get another good result at home.

“Every time you win, it builds a little bit of momentum. I thought we did a lot of good things at Leverkusen partly because of what we did at Wolves.

“We’ll always go into a game with hope and things can alter in football very quickly, so hopefully it can change against Leverkusen next week.”