West Ham United opt to gamble on Moyes’ reputation in face of recent history
“Your job now is to stand by our new manager.” These were among the parting words of Sir Alex Ferguson as he bade farewell to the last Old Trafford crowd of his 26 years at Manchester United back in 2013. The man he was introducing was the successor he himself had anointed, David Moyes; and, to their credit, the fans put aside whatever misgivings they had about the incoming Scotsman because of what the departing one had done for the club.
We all know how the manager that the Stretford End anointed as “The Chosen One” fared at Manchester United: sacked inside eight months with the champions in seventh place. He had lost the dressing room with his suggestions to titlewinning defenders that they should be more like Everton’s Phil Jagielka and reading management books on the plane to Champions League matches; he lost the fans with his Eeyore-ish foretelling of doom and negative comparisons to traditional rivals Liverpool and Manchester City.
The Moyesiah had a false dawn in Manchester and his next role at Real Sociedad in La Liga, while brave, was also both brief and doomed. That he returned to the Premier League as manager of Sunderland and took the team down to the Championship at the foot of the table, while being decried as outdated by his players, did little to reclaim a once glowing reputation.
The years have been tough on Moyes since he left Everton for his dream job at Manchester United. West Ham United, where he replaces the outgoing Slaven Bilic after the board finally lost patience with the Croat, is his third club inside the time frame of his initial five-year contract at Old Trafford.
While he may feel like he deserved more time at United, disaster has been the only constant under his recent stewardship.
Moyes is a nice man by all accounts, a good soccer man to use the turn of phrase beloved by the game’s network of old boys. They – the likes of Sam Allardyce and his pro-British manager cabal – are the ones who say that he is “due” a chance to rewrite his career by turning a club around as he did Everton. The worry for West Ham is that he is no longer the manager who brought seven consecutive top-10 finishes to Goodison Park. How long his honeymoon period in East London will last is anyone’s guess.
The Hammers see themselves as a big club and they have dreams to match. In contrast to the other clubs he has managed, the owners are as outspoken as the fans, a stark contrast to the mild-mannered manager and his recent reputation for prophecies of impending doom.
On the plus side, Moyes should be able to right what West Ham are getting wrong. His back-to-basics approach – which some might unkindly refer to as outmoded – will put an emphasis on becoming hard to break down, but that will come at the cost of any flair and entertainment. Maybe that will do until the January transfer window opens but then his recruitment will be under scrutiny.
West Ham fans have no choice but to stand by their new manager. Still they would be right to worry that he will deliver Championship rather than Champions League soccer.