David Moyes expects West Ham to be in for a tough game against Crystal Palace, especially due to the difference in recovery times.

Unfortunately, West Ham’s impressive display against Bayer Leverkusen was not enough to go through. While this is obviously devastating, it is something that can’t be dwelled on for too long as the Hammers have another mammoth task of securing European football for a fourth consecutive season.

Rightfully so, Moyes was extremely proud of the players performance on Thursday night and remains hopeful that they will be able to finish in a European place. “The praise goes to the players for how well they performed last night,” the gaffer stated.

“The first-half performance was terrific. I have to say I thought our performance away from home was very, very good as well. I’m only repeating myself from what I said last night, that the players over the two legs did a brilliant job against an incredibly good side. But unfortunately we went out, sometimes in the cup competitions you need the draws to be favourable for you and our draw against Leverkusen was one of the toughest we thought we could get in the quarter-finals.”

“Over the three years, the three quarter-finals we’ve had, that has been the toughest game and the only one we’ve gone out on in the three years.”

“We’ve love to do it again and be back in Europe next season. You have to remember last year we did it by winning a trophy, it wasn’t by our league position. This year our league position has improved greatly. We’ve been challenging, around the top seven or eight all season.”

“Obviously we know the level of the games we’ve got, we know the level of the opponents, who are challenging as well for those European positions. It’ll be tough, it’s another year when we’ve played ten or 12 games more than most other teams as well, but we’ve enjoyed it and if we could get back to Europe again it would be great.”

Usually, West Ham’s trips to Crystal Palace provide an entertaining game. However, as he has done many times before, the Scotsman was eager to state how big of an influence his side playing on Thursday could have on the match.

“I’ve said many times it’s a difficult programme when you’re in the Europa or Europa Conference League. But we’ve now done it for three years and had nearly 40 games on Thursday-Sundays, so we have to get ready for one more Sunday game after a Thursday encounter.”

“I think going to Palace is always a difficult encounter. I think all the managers would say it’s never an easy place to go and get a result. They’ve got a terrific support and it’s another tough game.”

“We came up against [Eagles boss] Oliver Glasner when he was the Eintracht Frankfurt manager so I’m well aware of him. It’s good to see he’s come over to the Premier League as he is a very good manager. They had a brilliant win away at Liverpool last week, which is very difficult to do, but I think Liverpool had a game on the Thursday night before as well, which can have some effect on it. We need to go there and we need to win. We want to try and win all our games.”

Last time out in the Premier League there was a massive fright for the Hammers as youngster George Earthy went unconscious after a collision with Edson Alvarez. Fortunately, his manager was able to provide a positive update on his situation. “He’s great,” Moyes revealed. “He was in watching training the other day and he looks fine but obviously we’re following all the protocols required. He is not in contention this weekend with the head injury protocol.”