David Moyes has come under fire in recent weeks as West Ham’s record plummeted, but might the Hammers be performing better than they are?
West Ham fans must be having a bubble never mind blowing them if they think David Moyes isn’t good enough to be their manager.
The sight of thousands of Hammers supporters walking out in the first half last weekend was understandable given Arsenal were on their way to sticking six past them. But surely the fact it was Declan Rice scoring the final goal of the rout should be a reminder of where they are.
Rice was the Hammers’ best player last season as they won a European competition. That’s right, West Ham won a European competition less than 12 months ago. Some of Moyes’ critics seem to forget that. But Rice was sold because he wanted to leave and join the Gunners. He wanted to step up a level.
Their best player was removed. Yes, money from the £100m sale was reinvested but it doesn’t make it easy to replace such an influential footballer who played in the heart of their team.
Yet the way Hammers fans talk about Moyes you’d think they were tussling it out with the likes of Luton and Burnley at the other end of the table. West Ham are eighth, they’re level on points with Saudi-backed Newcastle and they’re one ahead of Brighton and the manager everyone raves about in Roberto de Zerbi.
The Londoners are just five back on Manchester United. European qualification is a real possibility still. Oh, and they’re in the Europa League last 16 having won their group. They’re six games away from another European final.
They’ve reached three major European finals in their history and – excluding the Intertoto Cup – have only qualified for a continental competition on 10 occasions. Yes, Moyes has got team selections wrong, he’s made substitute blunders and sometimes the football can be negative.
But he’s managing West Ham, not Manchester City. Back in December, they beat Tottenham, United and Arsenal in the space of a few weeks. Now Moyes has suffered bad results against two of those three sides but they were without one of their best players in Lucas Paqueta.
It has always been an odd relationship with Moyes and the West Ham fans. They’ve never seemed to be fully onboard with him. Of course, they could go out and get a younger more forward-thinking coach but they could also get that very wrong.
They should look at the job Moyes has done this season after losing their best player and think what do you really expect?
The role of the sporting director has become almost as big as the manager these days if you go by social media reaction. But Ashworth is going to find out now what it is like to being at the epicentre of one of the world’s biggest clubs.
There’s no doubt he did a terrific job at Brighton but helping to unearth gems that turn into very good players is one thing. Being the man responsible for making sure United don’t blow more money in the transfer market is another.
Newcastle signed some very good players during his time there with Alexander Isak probably the pick of the bunch given his relatively low profile but high potential.
