Unimpressed Hammers boss David Moyes has fired a stern wake up call to certain West Ham players after the Kiddy cup scrape escape.
West Ham are seriously fortunate to be in the hat for the FA Cup sixth round draw on Sunday after coming from behind to beat brave Kidderminster Harriers 2-1.
Trailing 1-0 following one of the worst West Ham’s performances in living memory, Hammers hero Declan Rice came on and rescued his teammates with a thunderous 91st minute equaliser.
West Ham star Jarrod Bowen then tapped home from close range with the last kick of the game to break Kiddy hearts.
Rice, Bowen, Pablo Fornals and Aaron Cresswell were perhaps the only players to emerge from the game with any credit.
Too many underperforming stars almost saw West Ham make history of the wrong kind against a side six divisions and 113 league places below them in the football pyramid.
David Moyes fires stern wake up call to certain West Ham players after Kiddy cup scrape escape
And speaking after the game a relieved but clearly irked Moyes fired a stern wake-up call to certain West Ham stars who failed to deliver ahead of the resumption of the Premier League on Tuesday night against Watford.
“Nearly all of the team that played today would be the team that play the European games so I saw it as not a big problem that they were coming here to play in this cup tie,” Moyes told the club’s website after the game.
“We should have come in the fresher team but it looks as if they were a bit more ready for the whole situation than we were.
“We needed somebody special – and Declan’s special – to make the difference because we couldn’t make the difference really with what we had…
“We won’t get very far (with Premier League resuming on Tuesday) if we play like that too often.
“Thankfully we’ve not played like that too often and hopefully we don’t do it again.”
A serious word of warning from the manager who must keep his West Ham players on their toes with so much to play for in the second half of the campaign.
But as they say the most important thing is being in the hat. And West Ham at least showed some resilience to pull off this scrape escape.
The draw for the sixth round of the FA Cup will be made at around 11am on Sunday.