West Ham United will take nothing for granted says boss

While the Hammers proudly sit on top of Group A with nine points, the Serbian outfit languish at the bottom of the table with just a solitary draw to show for their efforts so far this season.

But the canny Scot is acutely aware of the fact that the hosts gave his side a scare on Matchday One by taking a shock lead at London Stadium before a Mohammed Kudus-inspired comeback saw West Ham eventually win 3-1.

And Bačka Topola also come into this fifth match of the competition buoyed by a domestic 4-0 victory at Serbian SuperLiga leaders, Partizan Belgrade on Saturday.

“To be honest, I find every game in Europe difficult,” said Moyes.

“No match is easy and we’re also very aware of their result at the weekend, too. In September, they also played very well at London Stadium, where they gave us a good game but fortunately we got the right result in the end.

“We’ll be showing them respect but we’re in a strong position in Group A and we’ll certainly be trying to win. By comparison, we’re going to be playing at a smaller stadium and it’ll be a bit colder, too, but the pitch looks good and, hopefully, we’ll perform well.”

Facing the daunting prospect of playing 10 matches over the coming 34 days, Moyes readily acknowledges that there is a big workload ahead in the run-up into the New Year

But if he is to get the valuable victory that will take the Hammers into their final match on December 14 knowing they would then broadly only need to avoid defeat against second-placed SC Freiburg to qualify for the last 16 next spring, the Glaswegian must do it without the club’s record European goal-scorer, Jarrod Bowen and two unnamed players.

“It’s been very difficult over two years trying to juggle the European games with the Premier League matches but for the most part we’ve done quite well reaching a UEFA Europa League semi-final and a UEFA Europa Conference League final so we’re trying to do much the same,” added the 60-year-old, who – 13 different countries on – now takes charge of his 32nd European tie since September 2021.

“This year, we’ve found ourselves in a very hard group which has made it difficult to make too many changes but Jarrod hasn’t travelled nor have another couple who’ve some illness, too.

“When we first started out against Dinamo Zagreb two years ago, I’m not sure that I would’ve believed anyone if they’d said that we’d have three successive seasons in Europe and set a British record of 17 matches unbeaten.

“We’ve really enjoyed our journey during that time and here we are in another country and another town.”

The Hammers will have the backing of a 320 die-hard fans inside the 4,500-capaciity TSC Arena tonight and Moyes paid tribute to their travelling support.

“When we first got into Europe, we really wanted our supporters to enjoy their away trips, behave themselves and see their team doing well in European competition,” he added.

“Hopefully, they’ll now be standing back and saying: ‘Yes, we’ve had a really good couple of years.’ We’ve only lost one match – against Olympiacos – since our Europa League semi-final against Eintracht Frankfurt in May 2022 and I’ll be doing everything I can to, hopefully, ensure that we continue our good run.”