The annual debate over David Moyes‘s managerial credentials is in session at West Ham.
Things are not that bad, or at least not bad enough for any supporter to feel compelled to invade the London Stadium pitch, uproot a corner flag and plant it in the centre circle. But things are not perfect either, which in the modern-day era of football fandom is a sufficient cause for unrest and minor mutiny.
During last weekend’s 2-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest at the City Ground, a result that extended West Ham’s winless run to eight games in all competitions, away fans unfurled a banner that projected a simple message: Moyes Out.
“Maybe there’ll be managers who excite them more, possibly. But the one who’s sitting here wins more,” was the Scot’s mic drop response.
Discontent in the stands evidently hasn’t filtered into the boardroom. On Friday, Moyes revealed that he has been offered a contract extension with his existing deal set to expire at the end of this season, but that he will give it until then to make his mind up. The Moyesian discourse will carry on for a good while yet giving fans ample time to pick sides.
“I’m not a Moyes Outer, I’m a Moyes Out (In The Summer), if that makes sense,” Don Perretta, co-founder of the Fortune’s Always Hiding fanzine, tells i.
“Obviously, things went very well for him last season and he earned the right to have a bit of latitude, but my patience is beginning to wear a bit thin.
“I find him unimaginative tactically, his recent press conferences have been infuriating and one of the things always trumpeted is that he’s made West Ham hard to beat… well that’s not true at the moment either.
“I’m almost looking for some divine intervention, some indication that he actually knows what he’s doing because at the moment there is no sign of it.”
Perretta believes that the Moyes Out brigade represents a “vocal minority” albeit one “that is growing”. The movement gained fresh momentum after this month’s 6-0 home thrashing by Arsenal, West Ham’s joint-heaviest home defeat in their league history. b
“You can’t be serious as a football club and lose 6-0 at home to anybody, let alone a London rival. It was an utter capitulation and it’s impossible to defend that.”
Tangled into the antipathy that some supporters feel towards Moyes is the (often unfair) perception of him as yesterday’s man, a member of the Richard Keys-endorsed cabal of old school British managers whose cautious tactics and safety-first football are preventing West Ham from realising their full potential.
“We’re a club that has a stadium with a soon-to-be 66,000 capacity, we’ve got 55,000 season ticket holders and a long wait for a season ticket, we make a load of money through TV,” says Perretta.
“So the stage is right for someone with a bit of vision and ambition to do something spectacular. Maybe not do a Leicester but be top-six contenders every year. We are not that.”
It’s a contestable point. The Hammers are ninth in the Premier League table, but only three points off Brighton in seventh with a game in hand, and are competing in Europe for an unprecedented third consecutive campaign. They face SC Freiburg in the Europa League last 16, a club they have already beaten home and away this season in the group stages (nice one, Uefa).
“There’s a widely held argument that it’s been this bad for four years. No, it hasn’t!” Phil Whelans, host of the Stop! Hammer Time podcast, tells i.
“I try to avoid any social media around it because it’s mad. It’s like a culture war, MAGA-type thing to try and confirm a pre-existing bias. He is being blamed for Brexit, AI and anything else and now somehow the existence of Kalvin Phillips is being blamed on David Moyes.
“People see the current events as frozen in amber. A sixth place [finish in the Premier League] then seventh place then a bad season in which we win a European trophy preceded by him keeping us up – that is the last four years under Moyes.”
That view is shared by Benji Lanyado, a West Ham fan and co-founder of the photography platform Picfair.
“What Moyes actually said the other day was bang on even if he said it in quite a confrontational way,” he tells i. “We’ve had sexy managers before and the truth is he’s won more than all of them.”
Whelans is also sceptical of the criticism levelled at Moyes’ style of play and the accusation that he isn’t getting enough out of a talented attacking triumvirate containing Jarrod Bowen, Lucas Paqueta and Mohammed Kudus when all are fit.
“Just before this last couple of bad months we beat Freiburg with some very entertaining football, I would argue some of the best football we’ve played since what is called in West Ham circles The Payet Season.
“We also beat Man United and Wolves playing really good football and I think that’s a counter-argument to this David Moyes’s football is so boring argument. We played very differently away at Arsenal, a more defensive game of the type that Moyes is often attacked with, and we beat them 2-0 at the Emirates.”
The general consensus from the West Ham fans i spoke to is that those vociferously opposed to Moyes continuing as manager are a vocal minority. The same is likely true of the group that wants Moyes to remain in position long-term.
Wedged between the two extremes is the most popular take: that Moyes has done an excellent job but has probably taken the club as far as he can and should step aside at the end of this season, while his stock remains high.
There is an argument to be made that perhaps he should have done exactly that last June after that historic night in Prague when supporters would have unanimously remembered his time in charge through claret-tinted spectacles.
“I understand why fans are frustrated because the nature of the football can often be quite hard work and arguably a team with the players we’ve got should be playing better football,” Lanyado says.
“But I would suggest that those fans are being a little short-term because there are two really big things going on with our team right now. Number one is that we desperately miss Lucas Paqueta since he got injured – take him out of the side and we do look a little meat and two veg.
“And the other thing that we’re missing right now is not so much Declan Rice as a player as between [Edson] Alvarez and [James] Ward-Prowse you get quite a lot of what he does, but Declan Rice as a leader.”
The commonly held assumption that Moyes will ride off into the Stratford sunset in May is not quite as strong now following Moyes’ contract revelation this week.
If he does depart fans are split on who should replace him, if unified in their desire for the next boss to be progressive in approach and amenable to overseeing a long-term project.
Graham Potter and Thomas Frank are mentioned as managers that West Ham should be capable of attracting, while Lanyado suggests another, more high-profile option.
“I’ll get laughed at for suggesting this but why not go all out for someone like Thomas Tuchel? Now that he’s perhaps not the flavour of the month for the absolute upper echelons of European football. [Director of Football] Tim Steidten apparently knows him. Why don’t we go all out and see if we can get someone like him?”
When the time comes for Moyes to end his association with the Hammers, he will be rightly heralded for his various successes in east London: overseeing Rice’s development from promising teen to world-class midfielder, converting Michail Antonio into a goalscoring centre-forward, securing a top-six finish in the era of the “Big Six”, and winning a first major trophy in 43 years, among others. Even those calling for his head will surely wish him well.
“I think he deserves a huge amount of credit, a huge amount of gratitude and respect frankly from West Ham fans but all good things come to an end,” says Lanyado.
“What’s frustrating is the revisionism that comes with it and that’s the bit that I just refute. He may well have come to the end of his time at West Ham but that’s not to say that his time has not been hugely successful and memorable.”
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