Hammers need organisation and results ... and Moyes will give ’em that
and go and appoint a replacement who is under the same sort of unreasonable pressure even before a ball is kicked?
It seems a wilful decision to bring in a boss who has that sort of massive hurdle to get over.
There are no two ways about it: it’s a helluva tough job.
Not an impossible one, but one stacked against Moyes, just as the Sunderland one was.
For a start, there will be a significant element willing him to fail, even before he’s gone in there, just so they can say, ‘I told you so’. It’s horrible, ridiculous, but it’s the nature of the game now.
He brings a poor record in recent years, but, for all the raging criticism, I’d just ask people to pause a second and consider what he’s been up against.
At Manchester United, that was quite possibly the hardest place in the world to go to straight after Sir Alex Ferguson.
After Old Trafford, it was as though Moyes felt he needed to get back into football quickly and maybe Real Sociedad appealed because of the glamour of La Liga.
Yet what chance did he have of breaking the monopoly of the big three clubs in Spain? Zero.
He did a reasonable job there for a time, considering he didn’t speak fluent Spanish, but it needed a miracle to win something.
The same can be said of Sunderland.
When I met Moyes at the airport, he indicated as much and even though he wouldn’t ever slag the club off, it seemed clear he wasn’t given the backing he was promised when he took the role.
They were relegation strugglers anyway, for years before he went there.
Their best players had gone and there was no real money to replace them. Not impossible, but nearly.
Now he has another tough job.
I know Moyes won’t be thinking of the negatives, he’ll be thinking it’s a chance to show people he wasn’t the failure everyone assumes after the Sunderland experience.
OK, he’s gone into a really tough environment and a hard task of having to win over a large sector of the fans.
But his qualities could also be what West Ham need at this moment.
He was never a flair boss at Everton, but he got his team organised, knew how to get results and, when things were going well, they could play decent football.
That discipline and strength will suit West Ham right now.
They need to find consistency and grind out a few results and then, maybe with the confidence that brings, they can be a bit more expansive again.