Home comforts are thin on the ground for West Ham's European winning machine

As this relentlessly bleak winter drags on into the second week of March, it is important to take comfort in life's simple pleasures.

For some people that means putting on a favourite jumper, toasting a hot cross bun, and settling down with a Ruth Rendell audiobook. For West Ham manager David Moyes, 'hygge' – the trendy Danish concept of cosy wellbeing – comes in the form of the Europa Conference League.

European football's wholly unnecessary tertiary club competition – that's a verbatim quote from the commemorative scarves handed out by Uefa at last season's inaugural final – has provided Moyes and his boys with a Billy Liar or Walter Mitty-style existence in which they are an unstoppable winning machine.

Thursday's 2-0 victory away to AEK Larnaca in Cyprus made it nine wins out of nine in the Conference League for the Hammers, who are now ranked third, behind only the Vikings and the Roman Empire, in the table of the most successful raiders in European history.

Viborg, FCSB (the artist formerly known as Steaua Bucharest), Silkeborg and Anderlecht had all been routed at home and away before the last-16 first-leg win in Cyprus, where Michail Antonio – that heroic antidote to the Hammers' long list of underachieving strikers – scored both goals. 

Admittedly, the Conference League has not yet captured the imagination of the wider footballing public. Some cynics scathingly referred to it as 'the Vauxhall Conference League' until Jose Mourinho bestowed some much-needed gravitas on the competition last season by winning it with Roma and then getting a tattoo of the trophy on his right arm.

But how do we square West Ham's continental dominance with their meek domestic performances, particularly away from home in the Premier League, where they have picked up just six points from 13 fixtures?

For next weekend's trip to champions Manchester City, the best approach may be to drive the players around for 12 hours in a coach with blacked-out windows and tell them they're on Conference League duty at Freiburg or Slavia Prague or Rennes.

Still, Thursday's visit to Larnaca allowed Moyes to forget about his side's relegation scrap and after the game he proudly declared: "Not many managers and players get to back-to-back European quarter-finals."

I'm not sure that claim is backed up by statistics – Real Madrid luminaries Isco, Nacho and Dani Carvajal have each won five Champions Leagues, for example – but you can't blame the man for feeling a little giddy after an away victory in a Conference League round-of-16 tie.

Even Moyes has probably given up on the notion that ECL wins will provide West Ham with a springboard for a triumphant run in the Premier League and they look worth opposing in Sunday's home game against Aston Villa, who have won four of their last five away matches in the top flight.

However, the happy-go-lucky Hammers boss will no doubt take the positives from any setback against Villa, pointing out that not many managers and players in the history of the game have beaten AEK Larnaca and lost to a deflected John McGinn strike in the space of four days.

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