David Moyes is looking for his West Ham United side to keep on the victory trail when they return to Europa League action against SC Freiburg tonight.

Having endured an uncomfortable start to 2024, the Hammers ended a barren eight-game spell with back-to-back Premier League wins over Brentford and Everton.

And their Scottish boss hopes his team have firmly turned the corner.

“I didn’t feel that we were playing that badly but, equally, I accept and understand what people want," said Moyes, who aside from Nayef Aguerd and Maxwel Cornet has a strong squad to choose from for the last-16, first leg tie against the Germans.

"Just like them, I want to see us challenging, showing our resilience and improving again with every game.

“After our disappointing start to 2024, I sense that we’re now getting back to where we should be and I’m looking for that to continue against SC Freiburg. 

"I want us to have another great run in Europe and I’d also like to see us finish strongly in the Premier League, too.

“When I look back on this three-year period, at the beginning it was incredible to know that West Ham had even made it into the UEFA Europa League in the first place.

"But we’ve all been on a great European tour and this will now be our 34th game since we started our journey.

“We hope that our experience of reaching the knockout stages during the past two seasons will hold us in good stead, while it wasn’t so long ago when we were playing Freiburg anyway.”

Moyes has already steered the Hammers to home and away victories over Christian Streich’s side in Group A, adding: “It was an interesting draw for this round and I’m not too sure what effect those two previous matches are going to have on this game.

“Freiburg also had to beat Lens to get into the last 16 and that was a very good result for them.”

West Ham had to do it the hard way at the sold-out Stadion am Wolfswinkel in early October, given the usual army of Claret and Blue supporters were banned by UEFA from attending their team’s 2-1 victory, following trouble at June’s Europa Conference League final in Prague. 

Some 2,200 West Ham United fans are scheduled to be present tonight (8pm), against the side that sits ninth in the Bundesliga, albeit many will need to overcome national railway and airport strikes to arrive on the western edge of the Black Forest.

“The atmospheres that we’ve experienced in the German stadiums has been as good as or better than we get with Premier League clubs and I’m expecting similar,” added Moyes, acknowledging the resourceful efforts that are going to be needed by those hardy travellers from the East End. 

“I really hope that our fans can get here to support us. I thought it was only in the UK where we had strikes - not Germany! - but I want them all to arrive safely and enjoy their experience.”