Four reasons West Ham swapped survival fight for top-four tilt
Without a bank-busting budget, manager David Moyes has chopped the dead wood: Sebastien Haller at a £25million loss and Felipe Anderson on loan to Porto, for example. Moyes has galvanised the mercurial Pablo Fornals, transformed Michail Antonio into an international quality all-round striker, kept Declan Rice and, in Craig Dawson, Vladimir Coufal, Jarrod Bowen and Tomas Soucek, acquired his preferred hard-running but stylish team players. And the once-famed production line is cranking up again: all Saturday’s three substitutes were debutants.
David Moyes
Appointed in 2017 with West Ham struggling, Moyes (right) picked through Slaven Bilic’s rubble, kept them up and, always seen as a temporary solution, left to no great outpouring of grief. Re-appointed in 2019 with West Ham struggling, Moyes picked through Manuel Pellegrini’s rubble, kept them up and stayed to build.
Surrounding himself with Stuart Pearce’s fire; longterm lieutenant Alan Irvine’s technical expertise; Paul
Nevin’s eye for youth and Kevin Nolan’s links with West Ham’s past, Moyes has exorcised his Manchester United, Real Sociedad and Sunderland ghosts. After Saturday’s demolition of Doncaster eased West Ham into the FA Cup’s last 16, Irvine evoked the Everton of 2004-05, who finished in an unlikely fourth place under Moyes and himself: “Nobody expected it with Everton and nobody expects it with us. It would be lovely to do it again.”
Style
For all that Moyes engineered a great escape, last season’s West Ham were defensively sloppy and flaccid in attack.
“Our first job for this season was to make sure we didn’t concede as easily and then to have an attacking threat throughout the team,” Irvine said. They have conceded one goal in their past six games, while they have failed to score only three times all season.
Lockdown
Without the intervention of 30,000 would-be managers – unhappy with the new stadium; unhappy with the board – on his back, Moyes has been able to make mistakes, such as the opening day 2-0 home defeat by Newcastle without teething problems being escalated. Other clubs have suffered playing in empty stadiums. West Ham have blossomed.