Nothing is left to chance as Moyes battles to stay up
DAVID MOYES stood at the doorway of the West Ham press conference cabin and dropped his umbrella. ‘I’m not going to keep the brolly up in here, that’s for sure,’ said the manager.
Moyes does not want to invite any bad luck on his side as they face yet another important match at the London Stadium today. After recently beating Everton 2-0 and Nottingham Forest 4-0 — two games which weighed heavy on his future — Southampton now represent the ultimate test.
Moyes (below) realises the importance of today’s showdown and says he has been taking no notice of the forecasts predicting West Ham will avoid relegation.
columnist Chris Sutton was among those to provide his predictions, saying he is not as worried about West Ham as their rivals. Plenty of others have said the same.
Instead, Moyes wants his team to embrace the situation they find themselves in. ‘I don’t want to get involved in it,’ Moyes said of predicting who will finish where. ‘I want to focus on our games. But we’d all be lying if we said we weren’t looking to see the other teams’ results. Dropping into the bottom three is not nice. We don’t like it.
‘I referenced it in Covid — we stayed out of the bottom three on goal difference for however long we stopped playing. What a difference it made where you didn’t go months looking at your position in the bottom three. ‘It’s not nice having had an international break with us having dropped into the bottom three. And also with most of our games being at the back end — on a Sunday, for example.
‘But we have two games in hand and we have to try to use those. Some of the results have been that unpredictable. That’s why this year it would be very difficult.’
The West Ham manager is fearful of what a defeat today might mean for his position but he is a seasoned professional who knows the risks of not winning.
West Ham chairman David Sullivan has backed the boss, despite fans calling for a change, with the club’s run to the Europa Conference League’s quarter-finals helping Moyes’ position. They will play Gent in the next round. Southampton, on the other hand, are now on to their third manager of the season in Ruben Selles as they bid to survive.
On the pressure on him to win to keep his job, Moyes said: ‘The board have shown great strength behind (the scenes). They’ve kept the manager and I’m going to keep doing the job the best I can.
‘We believe we are a really good team. What we’ve not done is shown that often enough, so we’ve now got the chance in the next few months to show it.’
For once, Moyes has a fully fit squad to choose from. Danny Ings is likely to start up front against his former club.
‘He is a proper goal-scoring centre-forward,’ said Moyes. ‘We have Michail (Antonio), Gianluca (Scamacca) and I want them scoring. If they do, then no problem, they can keep their jersey.’