I’ve said this before but it is a mystery to me that anyone would support an extension to David Moyes contract at the London Stadium. Is it really possible that anyone who has actually sat and watched West Ham play recently would reach the conclusion that two and a half more years of this is exactly what is needed?
The ritual humiliation at the hands of Arsenal last Sunday was the perfect storm of the manager’s shortcomings condensed into a single ninety minute horror show – bizarre team selection, outdated tactics, lack of ambition, reckless depletion of the squad, poor substitution policy, and the inability to make in-game adjustments according to circumstances. Let’s face it, once the inevitable first goal was conceded there was never going to be a way back for the Hammers.
Remember this is the team that Moyes has built and coached for himself over the past four season – at not insignificant cost. Of the 14 players used against Arsenal only Ben Johnson and Aaron Cresswell were at the club before he arrived. Yet to hear the manager talk you would get the impression that events on the pitch have nothing to do with. His was a cunning plan whose brilliance was only let down by the players executing it badly.
Moyes continues to get plenty of support from the pundits and media commentators community who demonstrate a disappointingly superficial view of the club and its fans. After all, West Ham are merely a support act to the big six in their thinking. The results look OK, so complaints are delusional. Get real! The idea that fans might want something more than the current turgid, unadventurous offering is unthinkable. What, they want to be entertained as well?
Most of the fan polls I’ve seen are hoping for change with many threatening to give us season tickets if the manager is renewed. Even through the Board’s financially skewed lens they must be starting realise that this team can only scrape a top ten finish at best and will not be playing in Europe next season. And Moyesball is not the biggest selling point to attract promising talent.
I’m not at all convinced by the frequently aired argument that Moyes has done a fantastic job at West Ham – although that might depend on what you expect from your manager. On paper his legacy is decent with consecutive top seven finishes and the club’s first trophy for over 40 years. The history books will not be concerned with the state of the current squad – small, slow and old – with how much money has been spent to achieve that, or that the trophy win – as welcome as it was – offered little by way of stiff competition. West Ham are reported to be the eighth richest club in the Premier League – that is our benchmark as an established top tier club. We should not be run and play like a newly promoted club that is seeking consolidation
It is difficult to look at West Ham and believe that a platform for the future is under construction. That is a reflection on both the Board and the manager. Temporary fixes to long standing structural problems have unfortunately been papered over by European glory.
There’s no doubt that Moyes first full season at the London Stadium was full of promise, particularly during the purple patch when Jesse Lingard was surging into space in the opposition half. It was by most measures the Hammers best ever Premier League season. But there was a watershed for Moyes and his tactics which occurred as we welcomed in 2022. Between the start of the 2020/21 season and December 2021 Moyes could boast a 50% win percentage and an average of 1.7 points per game. The record since then (to date) shows the win percentage dropping to 33% with a return of 1.2 points per game. Hardly impressive! The consequence of everyone knowing how West Ham play and a manager who is unable to change his twenty year old tactics.
Apparently, the club has now returned to the groundhog cycle of giving the manager three or four games to save his job. These would be away to Nottingham Forest and Everton and home to Brentford and Burnley. On current performances, the Burnley game in mid-March looks the earliest opportunity to put an end to the 2024 winless run – and, I suppose, to reset the doomsday sacking clock one more. What a way to run a football club.
The first of these games is this weekend’s visit to the City Ground which is always a passionate and tricky affair. Despite impressive wins over Newcastle and Manchester United following the appointment of Nuno Espirito Santo, Forest are also winless in the league in 2024 – although they did manage to defeat both Blackpool and Bristol City in the FA Cup. They will view the game against a shell-shocked West Ham as a perfect opportunity to put daylight between themselves and the rest of the relegation pack. How easily the Hammers defence succumbed to the Arsenal overload at set pieces will not have gone unnoticed.
Early team news suggests that both Lucas Paqueta and Michail Antonio will continue to be absent for the Hammers. It leaves Moyes with few options to mix up his beleaguered charges. Something needs to be done at the back and there must be huge concerns about Kurt Zouma’s ongoing fitness woes. A centre-back pairing of Nayef Aguerd and Dinos seems most probable. But don’t rule out the tantalising prospect of Aaron Cresswell and Angelo Ogbonna pushing for recalls in a safety first back five. The standard Moyes response to a big loss is to get back to basics and become even more cautious.
There was an amusing story online yesterday that West Ham were dismayed to discover Kalvin Phillips had eaten too many chip butties and was overweight when he joined West Ham. Apparently, a West Ham medical does not include being weighed which led to Moyes unknowingly putting him straight into the first team. Whether Phillips or Edson Alvarez gets to partner the undroppable Tomas Soucek is an unanswered question. Soucek does seem to be a decent fella but is there a more technically limited outfield player in the Premier League right now? The giveaway for me is the number of times he heads the ball or hooks it first time rather than rely on his control.
In attack, Maxwell Cornet wanted to know whether he needed to bring his boots along this weekend. I wonder whether we can top six touches in the opposition box for this game?
I’ll admit that at half-time last weekend I was half-hoping Arsenal would go on to score double figures causing Moyes to quit in embarrassment. I’m similarly torn this week. Never want to see my team beaten but equally want a fresh face and new ideas in the manager’s dugout. I know that relies on the Board making a sensible appointment as replacement, but we have nothing if we don’t have hope. COYI!
Under The Hammers 
WOW Geoff, 100% my thoughts but so eloquently and accurately produced. I think you have hit the nail on the head about pundits (Savage and Shearer particularly) the ones championing Moyes are not West Ham specific supporters. We, true supporters, are not helped by the super poor communication from club management about what is going on behind the scenes. Do we not have a public relations department? Is not NOW an ideal time to think of a change? We cannot go down and there is a reasonable time for newbie to get established and running before next season. Just out of interest your thoughts on who could do a good job. Regards Michael Batchelor
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Cheers Michael.
Didn’t the guy responsible for supporter engagement at West Ham just leave to work at Tottenham?
I’ve not got any strong opinions on who would make a good replacement for Moyes – mainly because I am not familiar enough with the new breed of managers here or on the continent. I guess Potter is an option but have some reservations that his teams looked good but lacked a cutting edge. The guy at Ipswich (Kieran McKenna) who I have mentioned before looks interesting. Can’t get excited by the idea of Michael Carrick who is often mentioned.
Hopefully, someone (Steidten) is scouring the dugouts as we speak to find the ideal candidate.
Geoff
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We should employ Arne slot and coaching staff from feynoord.He plays attacking possession based football that we all want to see! Whoever comes in needs backing with a lot of funds as we are short in so many areas.We need a young goalkeeper a couple of wing backs another Centre half a playmaker in midfield a left winger and a couple of forwards minimum. So Sullivan and kretinsky had better dust off those wallets.COYI
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What I don’t understand under the various FFP regulations is what scope owners have for injecting capital into a club without breaching the rules. There might be a way but don’t know how that works. Thus the Saudis at Newcastle have to build slowly to increase revenues before they can really spend big.
That doesn’t detract from your main point that Moyes will leave us with a small, ageing squad that badly needs upgrades all round.
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A great piece of writing summed up West Ham’s woes completely.
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Thanks Hammer. Just have to keep the faith I guess.
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Great piece Geoff and I agree with every word. Whatever we do, we always seem to be four or five players short of a decent first team, let alone squad, and our continuing haphazard recruitment strategy ( ?) isn’t improving anything at all.
We must get a fast, powerful and prolific striker above all, and they are rare and expensive people. It’s a bullet we must bite. Of the existing squad, there are a number of players rapidly reaching the end of their Premiership lives: Coufal and Soucek are now struggling every week. Coufal is far less affective at getting forward and linking with Bowen ( possibly because Bowen is now playing CF for some reason) and his mate Soucek is almost a liability now.Zouma is simply not fit enough for the role he has to play, And we should have known that when we bought him. Clearly not weighing new players is only one of the things we don’t check properly! Chronic knee injuries are also excluded. Not being wise after the event, my Chelsea supporting friend told me all of this before ( much to my mate’s relief) we bought him. Cresswell is finished, but I thank him for his service. Ward-Prowse is a massive disappointment to me – he simply doesn’t contribute anywhere near enough in open play and his “ legendary” dead ball skills seem to have died.
All of this is nothing compared with the screaming need for a new, young, progressive and charismatic Manager. Surely to God we can’t have another two seasons of the turgid, leaderless, disinterested and gutless rubbish we have been treated to so far this year? Surely!!
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Leaderless on and off the pitch I think. Zouma was never a good choice for captain even if fully fit. And I don’t see much in the way of leadership in the rest of the team. I’m pretty sure there’s a team in there somewhere ready to perform under the right management. Can’t see us winning another game until Paqueta returns but they might surprise us. JWP was always a tidy player in open play rather than a standout one but needs to be played in advanced areas.
It still amuses me to see the media articles praising the job Moyes has done at West Ham. It highlights how superficial sports reporting is in the main. They simply don’t get that supporters can be fed up with dull, dreary, boring, unadventurous football week after week. They just can’t see beyond a couple of better than average finishes.
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I’m glad that the stadium emptied at halftime v Arsenal. The fans who were courageous enough to vote with their feet spoke volumes!!! They have had enough of being served up tripe every Saturday. They are fed up with being taken for granted.They work hard for their money and make a lot of effort to support west ham! Why shouldn’t the players put in 100 per cent every game? That’s what we want and expect when you pull on the west ham shirt. Just like Billy bonds, mark noble and Kevin Nolan. West ham fans love skill etc but expect our players to put in effort.We expect our club to be run the same by the owners,manager and the coaches.But only the West ham faithful are keeping their side of the bargain. The manager seems to be a pessimistic type who couldn’t inspire Messi. He certainly doesn’t have any motivational or tactical skills.And as for making west ham hard to beat,as moyes is an expert in defensive analysis and former centre back.After losing 1-4 v villa 0-5 v Fulham 1-5 v Liverpool and 0-6 v Arsenal. I think he’s delusional and extremely arrogant and incapable of changing his teams formation.These type of managers are a thing off the past! Mourinho, Allardyce,and Moyes. We need Moyes out of our football club now and a younger more positive manager instead.Its as if he has infected defeatism into every west ham player that he works with? The comments he makes after losing games and excuses are always the same. He’s become an embarrassment by his actions and inactions. Let’s hope steinden stays and brings in a young inventive coach. And Sullivan and kretinsky back the new manager and coaches properly? COYI
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Great post and wise words. The fans need to keep up the pressure against Moyes so that Sullivan and co are in doubt how they feel. Moyes is such a yesterday man and that rubs off on the players. The few times I have seen clips of Moyes with the players he comes across as very awkward – even in the dressing room after the Europa win. I can see how anyone could be inspired by him. His entire approach is based around defence and it hasn’t worked at West Ham for over two years now. It hink we’re stuck with him until the summer. I see that we’ve drawn one of the beatable teams in the Europa League draw but that’s only a stay of execution for our season.
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