NEW BOSS.. SAME DROSS
Horror start to Moyes era has fans in open revolt & team in deep trouble
POOR old David Moyes – his first course as West Ham manager was a familiar East End dish, pie and trash.
If there was any doubt before, there is none now. The Hammers are facing a relegation battle.
Apart from three yawning chances either side of the break – one wasted by Cheikhou Kouyate, the others thwarted brilliantly by Watford keeper Heurelho Gomes – Moyes’ earliest sip from the poisoned chalice was pure cyanide.
For a team greeting a new regime, the Hammers were unbelievably lethargic and slapdash.
The verdict of travelling fans was emphatic, and they serenaded their team with the songbook of the damned: Sack The Board, You’re Not Fit To Wear The Shirt and an unrepeatable chorus about vice-chair Baroness Karren Brady.
These imposters are not pearly kings, they are the poorly kings of English football.
Everyone thought West Ham were too good to go down in 2003, when they had the likes of Joe Cole, David James, Michael Carrick and Jermain Defoe – but they still slipped through the drayman’s trapdoor.
This lot are NOT too good to go down.
On the alarming evidence of 90 minutes at Vicarage Road, they may be too useless to stay up.
Amid the widespread astonishment at West Ham’s feebleness, Watford head coach Marco Silva’s uncertain future was almost forgotten for the afternoon... almost, but not quite.
For the umpteenth time, Silva failed to dispel any doubts that his head has been turned by Everton’s vulgar wealth.
But if this performance proves to be his parting gift to the Hornets, at least he is leaving them in rude health – which is more than can be said for the ailing Hammers.
The level of vitriol aimed by travelling missionaries from the land of cor blimey was vicious.
Moyes is hoping for a united front, with everyone pulling in the same direction.
But it looks as if he will have to plot a course towards safety to a soundtrack of mutiny.
If West Ham’s game plan was to rough up Watford, former England striker Andy Carroll got the wrong
end of the stick. It took him just seven seconds to leave Dutch left-back Marvin Zeegelaar, making his Hornets debut, with a bloody nose.
There was no malice in Carroll’s challenge, and he was soon booked, but from that moment he was a marked man.
Moyes admitted: “I had to make a decision at the interval because I was worried that Andy might get himself sent off.”
Too much of West Ham’s aggression was misdirected and they fell behind after 11 minutes when Andre Gray’s miskick fell kindly for Will Hughes to sweep a first-time shot into the corner – Watford’s 12th different scorer in the Premier League this season.
Teams under new management usually enjoy an immediate spring in their step, but the Hammers’ response was limp and lacking purpose.
They looked utterly toothless until, out of nowhere, Gomes was required to make a sprawling intervention to deny Kouyate an undeserved equaliser from Mark Noble’s first-time pass.
And in first-half stoppage time, Gomes made a remarkable double save from Marko Arnautovic, but the Hammers’ near-misses did not fool their vocal support.
England keeper Joe Hart made a tremendous onehanded save to keep out Adrian Mariappa’s header as the Hornets enjoyed a sustained spell of pressure, but he was unable to prevent Richarlison making it 2-0 after 64 minutes.
Hughes released the £11.2million Brazilian discovery with a sublime pass down the inside-left channel and Richarlison’s left-foot finish for his fifth goal of the season was too strong for Hart.
Christian Kabasele smuggled Manuel Lanzini’s shot off the line as the Hammers went through the motions of a fightback, but their desultory season has taken another turn for the worse. Pie and trash? Moyes says he wants his players to run further and faster – but at Vicarage Road they could not have run a whelk stall.