‘The biggest worry for me’: Moyes says he was concerned about one West Ham player after Burnley

David Moyes made an honest admission about one of his West Ham United players, after our win over Burnley yesterday.

Although West Ham manager David Moyes led his team to a 2-1 victory at Turf Moor, the entire game was extremely difficult to watch.

It wasn’t until the last ten minutes of the game that the Hammers were truly at the races.After scoring an equalizer that was ultimately ruled an own goal, Divin Mubama got us back into the game and gave Moyes a clear message with his celebration.

Edson Alvarez was one of the West Ham players who took an extremely long time to start playing. To be fair to the Mexican, he has spent the last few weeks away on international duty across the Atlantic.

The problem is that Moyes cannot afford to rest the 26-year-old because he is the team’s glue—at least within our own half—and he does not have another natural defensive midfielder at his disposal.

However, it was evident that yesterday the Mexico international wasn’t at his physical best.

David Moyes admits concern about one West Ham player after Burnley win

The Scot addressed the media yesterday after our hard-fought 2-1 win against the Clarets.

And Moyes highlighted just how tired Alvarez was going into the game, as quoted by WHUFC.com:

“The biggest worry for me today was Eddy Álvarez, as he only got back to Heathrow at five o’clock on Thursday afternoon. He had extra-time in his game for Mexico and he also had the jet lag and anybody who has been to the American side of the Atlantic will tell you how bad the jet lag is. On another day we might have said we wouldn’t play Eddy because he was out of steam on Friday, and I said to him I was always going to take him off, but when he got booked it made the decision easy because I needed to try and protect him a little bit. The boys who go away, it’s really difficult for them to go away and be really at it in the next game.”

The fact that we lack a backup to take Alvarez’s spot when he’s not playing worries me a lot.

At the very least, West Ham manager David Moyes needs to address that in January or summer of next year by adding another DM to challenge and cover for the Mexican.

Although Alvarez is an excellent player, without him on the field we are a very different team.

And it’s clear that Moyes must address that specific weakness as soon as possible if he wants to see real progress from us as a team.