David Moyes sends fresh demands to West Ham stars thanks to James Ward-Prowse
David Moyes has been blown away by golf-mad James Ward-Prowse’s pitching wedge accuracy from set pieces but now he wants West Ham's towering defenders to chip in with more goals.
Ward-Prowse has contributed five assists from six games since joining from Southampton for £30million and has celebrated two goals of his own with the imaginary swing of a club.
The West Ham boss puts the 28-year-old in a top tier alongside David Beckham when it comes to dead-ball specialists. And six days on from eight different Newcastle players scoring against today’s visitors Sheffield United, Moyes reckons his back line can be even more prolific at converting pinpoint passes.
“There’s not many [better] when you go into the names of who you would call set-piece specialists,” Moyes said. “David Beckham comes to mind right away but there’s not a huge amount of others. There’s loads who’ve scored free kicks over the wall and that but James’ deliveries from corners are more than what most would do.
“Your job is to get it on the money, get it on the spot. That’s why you are at the elite level to do that, not to miss your target, a bit like the golfers at the moment.
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"And I’d be saying as a central defender: ‘Hey, I’m expecting to get some goals here.’ If you want some goals as a defender, you won’t get it better than with James Ward-Prowse delivering three, four, five set pieces a game.
"You will always have a chance of getting a goal. It’s not just the forward players. Like Newcastle we need everyone to chip in and be involved in the goals.”
Yet Moyes believes that placing such focus on Ward-Prowse’s speciality is doing a disservice to the rest of his game. “He’s playing a huge part for us,” he added. “Don’t forget he’s a good player and he’s doing a lot of other things than delivering the ball. That goes amiss.”
West Ham, with no fresh injury concerns, are not expecting a comfortable afternoon against Sheffield United and Moyes insists it is too early to make any predictions about relegation. The Blades, along with fellow new boys Burnley and Luton, have only a point on the board and the Newcastle embarrassment has piled pressure on Paul Heckingbottom.
Moyes added: “Last year the Premier League was really strong because the three teams that came up stayed up. Maybe this year looks slightly different but I think it’s a bit early to make that call. Normally it’s after about ten games.”
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