West Ham United midfielder Pablo Fornals has admitted that the recent international break hampered the Irons' preparations for Saturday's clash with Southampton.
After collecting seven points from their opening three Premier League outings, the London outfit made the trip to take on Southampton upon their return to action on Saturday, and the game finished goalless.
David Moyes saw 10 of his players leave for international duty in the previous fortnight, and Spanish midfielder Pablo Fornals believed it had an impact on the side, telling WHUTV: "We have been two weeks without each other, with a lot of players with their international teams, so we just trained together for two days, but it's going to happen."
Fornals was one of the players to feature on the international stage, as he started and got on the scoresheet in Spain's 2-0 victory over Kosovo, while also featuring off the bench in their 5-0 thrashing of Georgia.
The Scottish manager was in agreement with the midfielder after the Southampton match, saying: "It looked like they had all been away, Pablo, Said [Benrahma], Mic [Antonio] so it looked like we lacked a real connection."
With little time to get together for training, the Irons return to action on Thursday with a trip to Croatia to take on Dinamo Zagreb in the first game of the Europa League group stage, after they qualified with a sixth-place finish in the English top flight last season.
Sam Varley
