TURNING TOXIC
Out of the Cup, outclassed by West Brom, mutiny in the stands, injuries piling up. At West Ham it’s. .
BEFORE David Moyes arrived to dissect this FA Cup defeat one of the row of pictures saluting happier times for West Ham fell off the press room wall to the floor.
On this day of all days, of course, it had to be the one containing the headline: ‘It’s back to Wembley. Hammers make Cup history.’
Midway through Moyes’s press conference, the room was then temporarily plunged into darkness when the lights went out, just as they had on West Ham’s Cup hopes against West Bromwich Albion and former manager Slaven Bilic.
These were just strange coincidences that lifted the mood a little and sparked some obvious jokes after an otherwise miserable day for West Ham. What is to come next though, is no laughing matter.
Moyes’s men were booed off at half time and full time and the disconnect between the club and fans looks set to get even bigger.
Having staged a first protest against coowners David Gold and David Sullivan and vice- chairman Karren Brady ahead of their draw with Everton, supporters have organised another for February 29 before Southampton’s visit. Hundreds attended the first rally and with discontent growing about the club’s current plight and broken promises from the hierarchy that number will surely increase. Bilic knows only too well how difficult it is to manage West Ham with restlessness in the stands. He was in charge while the club tried to manage their controversial move from Upton Park to their new home before being sacked in 2017 after a poor start to the league campaign and was quick to remind the club’s fans of their ‘crucial’ role in this year’s survival bid. It is against a similar unhappy backdrop that Moyes is now working. He said: ‘ I’m behind the supporters in lots of things they do but I just want them to get behind the team. We need the atmosphere of old in the games coming up. We’re not in the best form and we have to get that.’ Moyes needs some players too. All eyes will be on the board this week to see if they deliver before Friday’s transfer deadline. Injuries meant Moyes could only make four changes and he needed to call on the three players he hoped to rest at half-time: Mark Noble, Angelo Ogbonna and Michail Antonio. West Ham were that bad.
Albion totally outclassed their hosts in the first half but only had Conor Townsend’s sweet strike to show for their dominance.
Moyes looked a stunned, almost haunted, figure as he stared out at the wreckage at full time, perhaps in disbelief at what his strongest available side had served up against West Brom’s reserves.
Only stalwart Noble emerged with any credit and it was cruel that he missed West Ham’s best chance of scraping a replay at the death.
Somehow, from somewhere, Moyes needs to find more players who care as much as the 32-yearold. ‘He has always taken responsibility and more importantly he is leading the team, leading the dressing room,’ said Moyes who reckons Noble has improved since his first spell in charge.
‘But we’re going to need more than him. He can’t carry it himself. Some of the others are going to have to carry that responsibility as well. Him and Declan Rice, since
I’ve been here, everything they’ve done, in the main, has been pretty good. We’re needing more to jump on, to come on to that.’ And quick. Or another season without silverware will be the least of West Ham’s worries.