In one sense, you could argue that David Sullivan has a point. After all, it’s now been eight years since West Ham United moved into The London Stadium. If Spurs can challenge – albeit increasingly intermittently, these last couple of years – for a place in the Champions League, where the real money is, and if Arsenal can return there after six years away, as another London club with a 60,000+ capacity stadium, why shouldn’t West Ham too?
By Ian King
But there is something about the way in which West Ham have treated David Moyes that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Generally speaking, supporters are fairly tolerant of the cut-throat world of football’s hirings and firings, but there are protocols of respect that clubs should follow, and this is all the more accentuated when the man concerned has managed the club with a reasonable amount of distinction.
Furthermore, while West Ham United do indeed occupy a 60,000+ stadium in London, if Sullivan did believe that simply moving into a big stadium would turn his club into one of English football’s giants, then he seems to have underestimated what a challenge that might turn out to be.
When Moyes brought the Europa Conference League trophy back to The London Stadium last year, it was their first major trophy since the 1980 FA Cup. They won 14 out of 15 games in the Conference League and drew the other one. They’ve been a Championship club three times since the formation of the Premier League. When Moyes took them to sixth in 2021, it was their joint second-highest ever final league position.
Now, it might be argued that this Europa Conference League win was something of a red herring, masking a distinctly underwhelming Premier League season, during which they spent seven weeks in the bottom three and both started and finished the season weakly, with four points from their first seven games of the season and six from their final seven.
There is a case for saying that Moyes could have sailed off into the sunset after that trophy win, but…should he? After all, that was a year ago and West Ham’s 2023/24 has been…not too bad. They seem likely to end the season in the top half of the Premier League, while their thirteen league wins have included beating Chelsea, Brighton, Manchester United, Spurs, and Arsenal. They reached the quarter-finals of the Europa League and only fell at that stage to Bayer Leverkusen, who are currently 15 points clear at the top of the Bundesliga and unbeaten in all competitions this season.
The decision to meet Rúben Amorim for a bit of a chat last month was, as per the modern argot, pretty classless, a view that Amorim seemed to acknowledge himself in subsequently apologising for having met with the club. And during his previous spell in the Premier League at Wolves, Julen Lopetegui, who will succeed Moyes at the end of the season, was hardly known for expansive, attacking football. Although it’s fair to say that he joined a Wolves team that was scrapping to avoid relegation, it remains the case that they were the lowest scoring in the Premier League last season with 31 goals, while they also conceded six against Brighton, five against Arsenal, and four against Leeds.
The challenge at West Ham will be a different one, but what will the expectations for him actually be? Lifting a European trophy won’t be an option. The Hammers won’t be playing European football next season. Should they finish ninth this season, to improve upon that they’ll have to do better than one or more of Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Spurs, Newcastle, Chelsea, or Manchester United. Not all of these clubs are in a particularly great condition at the moment, but there don’t seem to be many easy wins in the business of leapfrogging there, either.
Moyes’ record at The London Stadium isn’t flawless. The 2022/23 Premier League season was a significant blot, while his reported insistence on bringing in Kalvin Phillips from Manchester City; a player with an unenviable injury record who gave away an equalising goal against Bournemouth on his debut and then got, to the surprise of no-one, injured after eight Premier League appearances. His loan period at The London Stadium already seems to be over. It might well be argued that bringing in an England international on loan to plug a gap in midfield was a decision that made perfect sense at the time, but his injury record was there for all to see.
But these feel like quibbles, relatively speaking. David Moyes is one of West Ham’s more successful managers, certainly of the Premier League era. Going back further, Ron Greenwood won the FA Cup and the European Cup Winners Cup, John Lyall won the FA Cup twice, and Harry Redknapp took them to a record high fifth place finish in the Premier League. But these three managers are from very different eras, in which three or four straight defeats weren’t ordinarily a reason to get rid of a manager. When David Moyes arrived at West Ham United, he arrived at a deeply unhappy and divided club. He stabilised them and finally brought a trophy back to East London. For that, West Ham United supporters should certainly be grateful, and it feels as though David Sullivan should have been rather more grateful too.
(Images from IMAGO)
You can follow every Premier League game live with FotMob — featuring deep stats coverage, xG, and player ratings. Download the free app here.