"Good chance" Craig Dawson's loan spell could be made permanent after impressing in West Ham win

David Moyes said there was a “good chance” Craig Dawson’s loan spell at the London Stadium could be made permanent after another impressive performance by the central defender in the Hammers 2-0 win over Leeds.

Dawson scored one header from an Aaron Cresswell corner and hit the post with another, as West Ham moved to within two points of the Champions League places – and with a game in hand.

Asked how likely it was that Dawson’s spell on loan at the east London club from Watford could be made permanent, boss David Moyes said: “There is a good chance although we are not quite there yet, but there is a clause in it after a certain amount of games and we are getting very close to that number.

“His performances, his attitude and determination are certainly worthy of that anyway.

“We brought him in, it took him a while before he got a start but that was because of the form of Fabian Balbuena and Angelo Ogbonna, but he has come in and added goals to us as well and his experience has been really important.”

Moyes said he was “absolutely thrilled” with Monday night’s victory, thanks to Dawson’s goal and one from another impressive loanee – Jesse Lingard – but said he and the players were disappointed with the overall performance.

Although the Hammers led 2-0 at the break, the Yorkshiremen had a host of glaring chances to get back into the game in the second half, but squandered them all.

Moyes said: “I think the biggest step is that the players are really disappointed with how they played tonight so that shows you the standards we have set most of the season.

“It felt like we had three weeks off instead of 10 days tonight - we just didn't seem to start the game quickly enough, we didn’t seem to get around the ball.

We were behind it for long periods, we grew into the first half and ended up with two goals and we were a bit unlucky not to make it three when we hit the post, but we were also behind it in the first 10 minutes when they had a couple of chances.”

Speaking of a possible challenge for the top four, Moyes added: “Look we are in a good position we are really pleased we are up challenging the top boys.

“If you had given me Sheffield United at home, Tottenham at home, Leeds United at home and said ‘you’ll win the three games’ I would have said ‘well what a really good return that is.’

“There is a five-game batch which included tonight, Manchester United and Arsenal who we have after that, plus the two games before.

“I had an idea of how many points we can take from them and we have just won two games. I know we lost at Man City the other week but out of those three we have won two which is a great return.

“We have now got Manchester United and Arsenal in that group of five games which I have been looking at and if we can get another win it would be a good return from this group of games.”