“It feels a bit like déjà vu,” David Moyes said, 19 months since West Ham waved goodbye and went off in search of the “high-calibre” manager who was going to bring elite glamour to the London Stadium. Suffice to say it has all been a colossal waste of time and money from a club where chaos has become the default setting. Moyes is the man for a crisis once more and his mission is straightforward: keeping West Ham, with all their fanciful talk of top-six finishes, in the Premier League.
Unfinished business was the theme on the Scot’s first day back in east London and he is not bothered by doubts over his pragmatic style. “What anybody is getting with me is an experienced Premier League manager,” he said. “Arguably there is only two or three who have got more than me. I’ve got the biggest win-rate out of a certain number of managers as well. That’s what I do. I win.”
West Ham, who are a point above the bottom three before hosting Bournemouth tomorrow afternoon, need a jolt after ending Manuel Pellegrini’s reign in the aftermath of their defeat against Leicester City and Moyes was straight down to business on Monday, arriving at the club’s training ground at 7am and telling his underperforming squad that he needs everyone pulling in the same direction.
If West Ham feel sheepish about giving the manager they ditched an 18-month deal on Sunday night, they have no one but themselves to blame. When Moyes replaced Slaven Bilic in November 2017 he found an unfit side and improved their work ethic. Yet it did not convince the board to extend his initial six-month deal. Pellegrini arrived, promising attractive football, but West Ham were easy to play against under the Chilean and habits that disappeared under Moyes have returned.
“I actually thought I had got rid of some of the things and we’d got to the bit where there was quite a lot of non-negotiables like ‘You’re doing the work’,” Moyes said. “I feel as if I might need to go back to the start and say ‘We’re back to here’. I would have liked to have come in with a new message. What I do believe is there’s a stronger squad than when I first came in.”
Discipline will be on the agenda. “I’d have said that was probably one of the biggest jobs I had last time,” Moyes said. “It was zero tolerance. It looks like I am going back to that level. You either get on board or you don’t because I haven’t got enough time. If one or two of you don’t like it, then let me know.”
The issue is whether Moyes can be described as tried and trusted given that West Ham let him leave after he saved them from relegation two seasons ago. Many supporters view him as a regressive appointment – another example of the broken promises since the move to the soulless London Stadium in 2016. David Sullivan and David Gold, the club’s owners, are under renewed pressure.
But while Moyes struggled at Manchester United, Real Sociedad and Sunderland, he can point to 11 successful years at Everton as evidence that he can give West Ham welcome stability. “I have always felt I am an extremely experienced manager,” he said. “I think there are very few who will have had the games, and I could actually say wins, I have had. I was disappointed I didn’t stay. But I totally understand that the owners have earned the right to make their own decision. The biggest thing is the owners have been big enough to come back and say ‘David, will you come back and do a similar job or better’. I have always considered myself in a group of top managers and I have got to prove that again.”
Moyes, who had no interest in another short-term deal, took training on his own on Monday. He is still putting together his backroom staff – Alan Irvine is on board, Stuart Pearce is under consideration and Billy McKinley could be lured away from Stoke – and the players are optimistic. Perhaps they remember how Moyes transformed Marko Arnautovic. Perhaps he can have a similar effect on wayward attackers like Felipe Anderson and Sébastien Haller.
Something has to change. Pellegrini picked his own director of football, Mario Husillos, and the pair’s signings disappointed. Husillos has also been fired and West Ham remain in need of a better structure, as Moyes made clear to Sullivan in May 2018.
Moyes, who wants to sign a commanding central midfielder in January, feels West Ham must be smarter in the transfer market. “I think we need to get young, progressive players with something to prove,” he said. “You still might have to sign a 30-year-old player now and again, even if it might not be your policy.” The question is whether West Ham will give Moyes, who said he lined up the deal to sign Lukasz Fabianski from Swansea in the summer of 2018, the time he was denied last time. “The next bit was the group of players I thought would help the club, to get a bit of identity,” he said. “We all want the sugar on top of the cake. We want exciting players, nice names who sound really good. We also want something we know gives us a level of consistency most Saturdays.
“You need four or five players at least who are giving you seven out of 10, eight out of 10 most Saturdays. You can’t have two out of 10, nine out of 10 once every so often. We had just avoided relegation – now where was the stability? There has to be a building process.”
