West Ham United boss David Moyes hits out at Leeds United's lack of midweek game and gives live view on VAR controversy

The Hammers were largely comfortable in their 2-0 third round victory over Marcelo Bielsa's men in the first of two meetings between the teams in the space of a week. Manuel Lanzini opened the scoring in the first half with a goal that was reviewed at length by VAR and given despite a suggestion of offside, and Jarrod Bowen sealed victory late on with a breakaway.

Moyes had not watched the goal back when he sat down to address the game's incidents with the press.

"I might ask you boys because you might have seen the rerun, I’ve not," he said.

"My feeling at the side of the pitch was I didn’t see anyone offside. I never had a fear at any time that it wouldn’t be a goal. When they took a long time to decide, I thought that there might be something I’d not seen. What did you think? When it is difficult, that’s when the decision becomes one seeing one thing, one seeing another. I didn’t see it but my feeling is the goal should’ve stood. Maybe it’s a VAR decision that’s gone for us, there’s been a few that recently we don’t feel have. We’ll take that one."

Moyes went with a strong side to face Leeds but admits he's concerned over the demands on his players with Europa League involvement this season adding to their workload. He's particularly aggrieved that West Ham must play against Norwich City on Wednesday while Leeds have a week off before returning to the London Stadium next weekend.

"I want to try and go far in the cup, it was tight in the Carabao Cup, I’ve got to say our draws in the cups have made it difficult, we’ve had tough opposition in all competitions," he said.

"I want to try and go far, but our bread and butter will always be the Premier League. We want to try and maintain a high standard, playing at that level. It's making it difficult for us. Leeds have missed two games through Covid yet we're playing in midweek and we have to play them again next Sunday. I don't see how that's correct."

What did please him was the performance of his players against an awkward opposition and keeping them out for 90-plus minutes.

"I think the big thing about it, we scored four at Watford, three at Palace, we got a couple today and on another day might have scored more," he said.

"I'm really pleased with the clean sheet because Leeds cause you problems because of how they play, they've got a really good style of play. This was probably one of the toughest ties drawn out of the FA Cup. I'm really pleased the players went about their job well."