THE DON of a new era
High-flying Moyes is following Sir Alex and Walter Smith’s example to help nurture the next generation of Scots coaches and now he’s...
THE rejuvenation of David at West Ham is one of football’s remarkable comeback stories. One in the eye for the hipsters who had decried him as old hat and a tale that has bolstered his status as the undisputed Don of Scottish football management.
Last weekend’s 3-2 win over Chelsea was enough to topple Thomas Tuchel’s side from the summit of the world’s richest league and strengthen West Ham’s credentials for a top-four finish.
It was no flash in the pan either. This season, Moyes has seen off Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester United and Leicester, improving on last season’s eye-catching form while simultaneously winning a Europa League section with room to spare.
Once dismissed as tired and out of vogue, Moyes does not look out of place competing with the Tuchels, the Klopps and the Guardiolas.
No wonder then that a collection of up-and-coming Scottish coaches should flock to him for advice as they nurture their own careers.
Graham Alexander, Steven Naismith and Duncan Ferguson all played under Moyes and cite him as an enduring influence. The man himself, still only 58, continues to defer to an older generation.
Sir Alex Ferguson, the original Godfather, remains a trusted source of advice eight years out from the day he retired and bequeathed the Manchester United job to his fellow Glaswegian.
More poignantly, Moyes reflects on Walter Smith, the man he’d earlier succeeded at Everton.
‘Walter called me just a couple of weeks before he passed away to ask how I was doing and talk about the team,’ he says. ‘And I remember in lockdown — I hadn’t been back at West Ham all that long — we were in a period with nine games to go.
‘I phoned Walter and said: “I can’t see how we’re going to score a goal. What are we going to do?”.
‘He talked about his time managing Rangers and different ways he dealt with these kinds of things.
‘Michail Antonio then went on a run where he scored a bundle and Walter was back on the phone saying: “There’s nothing wrong with your goalscoring now”. He was really good to me. I always felt I could call Walter at any time for any advice.
‘I still speak to Sir Alex, too, although not so often now. He’s always been really good to me.
‘When we were doing well, he’d phone and say: ‘“Well done, keep it going”. That gave me confidence and encouragement.’
At Smith’s memorial service, Ally McCoist quoted the American poet and civil rights’ activist Maya Angelou’s words that ‘people will forget what you did, people will forget what you said but people will never forget how you made them feel’.
Given the shared generosity of time and spirit shown to him by both Smith (right) and Sir Alex, Moyes is keen to maintain an open line of communication to some of his own disciples.
Upon taking the Motherwell job, Alexander remarked that it was Moyes who transformed him from a jobbing journeyman to consummate professional who would play in the Premier League at the age of 38.
Naismith, meanwhile, learned to think more clinically about the game under Moyes at Everton to the point he was as much an on-field coach for both Hearts and Scotland before segueing into an exclusively non-playing role with both.
We hear so little from Duncan Ferguson that it’s hard to determine exactly what makes him tick but we know that it was Moyes who encouraged him to knuckle down and earn his badges as he neared the end of his playing career at Goodison.
‘It does give me a sense of satisfaction when these guys get in touch with me,’ he says. ‘And it’s not just Scots. The other day, I had Phil Neville on who I had as a player at Everton. He is now managing in Miami and we were chatting about different games and players. It’s great when that happens.
‘I hope the players you’re talking about will vouch for this but I always encouraged them to do their coaching badges before they finished playing. I felt it probably made them more understanding of what I was trying to do as a coach and then, in turn, they become more understanding of their role within the team.
‘That went for boys like Graham Alexander, big Dunc, wee Naisy. Even if they didn’t become coaches or managers, they would become better players.’
The latest recipient of the Glens Premiership manager of the month award — his third in less than a year — Alexander is doing especially well at Motherwell.
Whether he will ascend to the rarefied level occupied by Moyes remains to be seen. Now a playground for super-rich owners and oil-funded states, the fashion is to throw money at the continent’s best coaches.
The career path of Moyes — who graduated from Preston to Everton and eventually Old Trafford — feels like a story from a bygone age and he knows it.
Once part of a cabal of Scots who served in the English top flight — Steve Clarke, Owen Coyle, Paul Lambert and Alex McLeish were also prominent behind Ferguson — the Scotia Nostra now numbers just one. ‘In my day, the guys we looked up to were Sir Alex, Walter and Jim McLean,’ says Moyes. ‘Even Andy Roxburgh, because he was hosting SFA courses for Scottish coaches. ‘In the last few years, we’ve seen fewer Scottish coaches down here.
‘That’s because they’re now able to go and pick up the best coaches from Italy, Germany, Spain. There is a new breed coming through and I think Scottish coaches have to change.
‘We’ve always been tough and hard. Players of my generation will know exactly what I’m talking about. But there’s a different way of managing now and I’m sure the new breed of Scots are coaching in that fashion. There has to be more communication now. Players are far more involved now than they were in years gone by.
‘But they’ll be picking it up. A few of my old players get in touch but I’m not sure how much they get off me. I’ve probably still got too much of the old stuff in me.
‘I’ve had to change as well to develop and evolve as a manager.’
If that ability to move and evolve with the times was the secret to Sir Alex’s longevity, Moyes’ resilience is surely the ballast to his innate coaching ability.
Appointed Ferguson’s heir to sceptical reaction, Moyes served just ten months of a six-year contract at Manchester United, kick-starting a sequence of struggles that took in hard shifts at Real Sociedad, Sunderland and a brief first spell at West Ham.
So successful has he been since being invited back to the East London side that when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer became the latest post-Ferguson failure at Old Trafford, some identified Moyes as the bestqualified man to take over.
That won’t happen, of course, and he is now totally at peace with that episode in his career.
He continues: ‘I wanted to try to be successful as Sir Alex was. It just wasn’t to be. I don’t think anyone within the game had written me off. People in the game understand that you’ve had 500 games in the Premier League. They understand the difficulty of the jobs I’ve had. It was people outside the game who had maybe written me off.’
Like most of us, Moyes is vulnerable to moments of insecurity and admits to questioning his own professional merits.
That was never so pronounced than during those long interludes between jobs.
‘You’ve always got doubts as a manager, especially when you’re not winning. You question what you’re doing and ask what you could do better,’ he says.
‘My idea was that I’d try to help myself when I was out of the game. I worked with UEFA, watched as much football as I could.
‘I tried to see what was new and kept myself up to date. I spoke on just about every pro licence throughout Europe, spoke to coaches along the way.
‘That kept me going. What I really needed was the right opportunity to get back in.
‘As a football manager, you don’t get a lot of chances. So when I got this one, I knew I had to show it, I had to prove it, whether I doubted
I felt I could always call Walter for advice at any time. Sir Alex, too
myself or whether I thought I was great at the job. You have to win games, that’s just the way it is.’
During his first spell at West Ham, Moyes took over an ailing team from Slaven Bilic, steered it from the relegation zone into safe waters and was abruptly replaced with Manuel Pellegrini.
When the Chilean was himself sacked two years ago, the Hammers’ board were big enough to then go back to Moyes and admit they had made a mistake.
Their humility has been rewarded with a remarkable upturn in fortunes for the club.
‘I’m really fortunate that I’ve got a good team here at West Ham,’ adds Moyes. ‘We inherited a few good players and we’ve managed to bring a few in who have really made it.
‘We’re a far more youthful, energetic side. And I feel I can be a lot more positive with this team and positive about everything around the club.’
Moyes’s team is bursting with energy and talent.
There’s scarcely a more effective midfielder in the Premier League than Declan Rice, while ahead of him Jarrod Bowen, Pablo Fornals and Antonio are among the most exciting propositions in the land.
The recruitment of the Czech pair of Vladimir Coufal and Tomas Soucek has been a Moyes masterstroke.
A notoriously cranky crowd, the denizens of the London Stadium have benefited from a ground refit that has brought them physically closer to a team that exerts its own emotional pull.
‘West Ham has incredible potential, untapped potential,’ enthuses Moyes. ‘I’ve had a chance to see what big clubs look like after being at Celtic, Manchester United and Everton.
‘West Ham is certainly a big club and there was so much room for improvement here. That’s given me the lift that I can try to build and grow the club, really take it on. What we all need as managers is a little bit of time. But when I came in, we won enough to stay up. We got a couple of players in who made the difference.
‘By doing that, it has helped reinvigorate the club. We’re back to full houses in the stadium and we’re competing against the top teams.
‘And obviously, we’re playing European football. I’m just trying to keep the momentum going.
‘I’m trying to challenge the players. I say to them that we’ve taken great steps. But the truth is we’ve got a few more steps to go before we get to where we really want to be.’
Fuelled by a generous supply of fairy liquid, a pitch-side bubble machine bursts into life every time the Hammers’ score a goal.
The one inflated by Moyes shows no sign of bursting.