David Moyes admits Pablo Fornals demanded to play during West Ham United’s 3-0 UEFA Conference League thrashing of Romanian giants FCSB on Thursday evening, speaking to Football London.
With the likes of Declan Rice, Kurt Zouma and Tomas Soucek afforded a well-earned rest, it was a bit of a surprise to see Fornals included in Moyes’ starting XI in Bucharest. The Spain international, after all, had featured in all-but one of West Ham’s games across all competitions in 2022/23.
Fornals certainly didn’t look like a player in need of a night off, however, tripling his season’s tally within 25 minutes either side of half time.
He opened the scoring with a fine left-footed strike after Ben Johnson’s high ball over the top. Fornals then slathered a thick layer of icing on top of a very tasty cake midway through the second half; converting after the FCSB goalkeeper parried away another fine delivery from 16-year-old debutant Ollie Scarles.
Two goals for Pablo Fornals as West Ham United hammer FCSB
“I hope so,” Moyes says when asked if Fornals can hope to add a more ruthless streak to his game. “Pablo needed that, a little bit of confidence.
“I gave him the chance to stay back (at home). I said; ‘look, you don’t need to come out, we’ve got enough players.’ He said; ‘no, I want to play.’ So did (Manuel) Lanzini.
“We gave the senior players the opportunity to stay. (But) they all wanted minutes, they all wanted to play. And, I’ve got to say, they played well. They played really well tonight. And it’ll help Pablo with getting two goals.”
Scarles, meanwhile, was a constant menace with his devilish left-footed crosses, as fellow teenager Divin Mubama marked his own debut with an admittedly-heavily-deflected finish.
“The left wing-back Ollie Scarles did really, really well tonight,” Moyes adds. “I thought his deliveries for the balls in the box and his general all-round play, for a 16-year-old, was very good.
“We’re really pleased for him. He’s young. He’s only really come on the scene in the last few months so he’s one of the young ones. We think he’s stylish on the ball, he’s composed but he’s got a lot of growing to do and he has a 16-year-old body at the moment.”
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