A faltering start puts Moyes under early-season pressure at West Ham
A faltering start puts Moyes under early-season pressure at West Ham: David Moyes will find little solace in his bleak forecast coming true.
After a lackluster 3-1 loss to Brighton on the penultimate day of the previous season cost West Ham a spot in the Europa League, Moyes said, “If we’re going to play like that, we’re going to be challenging in a different section of the league.”
“If they’re going to act like that, I can’t have them.”
No one was holding back. Moyes saw the warning signs coming long before his team qualified for the Europa Conference League, but that didn’t make the disappointment any less real.
Despite West Ham’s seventh-place finish and progress to the Europa League’s semifinals, he could not afford to let it distract him.
The team’s league momentum had stalled after Christmas due to a lack of depth, and Moyes sounded like a guy who knew it was time to make brutal changes as he opened up at the Amex Stadium.
Unfortunately, these obvious truths have not led to any progress. After playing seven games this season, West Ham has only collected four points.
World cup
They are currently in the 18th spot and are dangerously close to relegation. Moyes will be in a precarious position if the team continues to underperform up until the World Cup, even though the idea that he could be under threat may sound preposterous. Such is life in professional football today.
Although Moyes has done a fantastic job since his return to the London Stadium in December 2019, West Ham spent the third-most money of any club over the offseason of 2018–19.
Over time, expectations have increased. David Gold and David Sullivan have a track record of loyalty to their bosses, but is Daniel Kretinsky the same?
The advent of the Czech billionaire, who became West Ham’s second-largest shareholder in November, has increased spending, fueling speculation that Moyes may soon be fighting to save his job.
To some extent, West Ham’s struggles have resulted from bad luck. When they lost to Nottingham Forest, they were wasteful, but they were the better team in their tie with Tottenham and were only kept from a win against Chelsea by a terrible VAR call.
Facts
Some would claim that they are in an erroneous position. Even yet, West Ham are not putting forth their best performance ahead of tonight’s match against Wolves at Upton Park.
Following Everton’s 1-0 loss earlier this month, even Moyes admitted that his regulars had let him down. If pressed, one might say this is merely a team in flux. One might be that things have become boring or stale, which is a more critical take.
It might be argued that Moyes’s trademark low block, an abundance of toughness, and lightning-quick counterattacks have become stale.
But Moyes wants to polish up his team’s rough spots. With the return of Nayef Aguerd after a lengthy ankle injury, the team’s distribution from the back could improve with the summer edition of the center back from Rennes.
West Ham, who have scored only three league goals so far, will also be hoping to be more potent once £51 million record acquisition Lucas Paquetá has acclimated to the speed of the English game.
Moyes also has a responsibility to demonstrate his compatibility with Paquetá. It was widely believed that West Ham’s slow start to the season was due to the late arrival of the former Lyon midfielder.
It was disappointing that none of the new players got into the starting lineup on opening day against Manchester City. Perhaps a sense of greater urgency was needed.
Was too much time spent on the fruitless pursuits of Jesse Lingard and Filip Kostic while signing Aguerd and Alphonse Areola, the No. 2 goalkeeper?
West Ham had no choice but to acquire Thilo Kehrer because they only had one healthy central defender due to Aguerd’s absence at the beginning of the season.
Cost
Maxwell Cornet, a winger who formerly played for Burnley, would have been a better choice.
Meanwhile, Gianluca Scamacca, who cost £31.5 million to sign to give Michail Antonio some competition up front, has only started one league game and does not yet seem to be on the same wavelength as his colleagues.
It’s not great, especially considering how badly Moyes’s main players are doing. Right back Vladimir Coufal has been inconsistent, and forward Jarrod Bowen has failed to score in the league. The efforts of Pablo Fornals and Sa’d Benrahma are insufficient.
Their growing difficulty in maintaining possession is mostly attributable to Tomas Soucek’s troubles in the field center. But West Ham did not go out and get Declan Rice a new teammate. Soucek has been looking tired for a while, but Flynn Downes, who came over from Swansea, hasn’t played much but looks like a future star.
The Hammers can’t afford to wait. They’re putting themselves in a tight spot.
Moyes needs a reaction from his underachieving players so that they may recover their resilience. Given the team’s improvement under his leadership, he unquestionably merits a longer leash, but football is rarely fair. If West Ham loses to Wolves, the rumors will get louder and short memories won’t help.
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