There comes a time in every team’s life when the club has outgrown its head coach. At that point, it becomes far easier to part with a coach near the top than wait for the decline to set in, performances to go stale, and sweet memories to turn bitter.
West Ham are presently at that juncture with David Moyes. The Scotsman’s second spell at the club has yielded unforeseeable success both in the Premier League, where the Hammers have become entrenched in the top half of the table, and in Europe, where they achieved their first taste of success in five decades in 2023.
Moving on is always healthier than needless maintenance. Keeping someone around for the sake of keeping them around, through loyalty to their past achievements, delays the inevitable further and jeopardises the future.
With Moyes’ contract expiring at the end of the Premier League season, reports have emerged West Ham are targeting a move away from the former Manchester United and Everton manager. Ruben Amorim, one of Europe’s hottest managerial prospects, has reportedly met with the club’s hierarchy. A safe guess would be he isn’t the only man on West Ham’s shortlist.
Amorim’s demand, and European football’s looming summer of managerial madness, means he’s no certainty to replace David Moyes. If he isn’t, and the club fail to land their other high-profile targets, the temptation may be there to return to Moyes, a familiar, comfortable figure. Here’s why the time is right to move on from Moyes.
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Why the time is right for West Ham and David Moyes to part ways
It’s 7 June 2023, and early summer is in the air in Prague, the Czech Republic’s capital. In the city’s Fortuna Arena West Ham and Fiorentina are battling for the Europa Conference League trophy.
West Ham, coached by David Moyes and captained by Declan Rice, in what would be his final game for the club, took home the trophy with a 2-1 victory over the Italians. Fiorentina had 68% of the ball and twice as many shots as the Hammers and would’ve won on another night. A win for pragmatism over possession? Yes.
For David Moyes’ West Ham, this victory represents the peak of their cycle. A first European trophy in 58 years, secured the Moyes way. It won’t get much better. And it hasn’t. West Ham are out of the European hunt in 2023-24 season. Moyes’ contract expires when the season does.
In the 10 months since Prague, fan sentiment around David Moyes has seismically shifted. Where he once could put no foot wrong, he’s now overdrawn his goodwill. Fans want change.
This is to be expected when a playstyle like Moyes’ is deployed. Such systems, designed to be negative by limiting space for opposition attacks, inviting overcommitment into the final third and creating acres of space for breakneck counterattacks, serve a singular purpose: victory.
To begin 2023-24, it worked. Before the New Year, the Hammers beat Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal, Brighton and Manchester. On 28 December, they sat sixth. Since the dawn of 2024 they’ve won just three of 15 Premier League games, were eliminated from the FA Cup by Championship side Bristol City and knocked out of the Europa League, albeit at the hands of an all-conquering, still undefeated Bayer Leverkusen side.
Starved of beauty and geared towards defensive pragmatism, the negativity of Moyes’ style is compensated by the positivity of results. When results are there, everything’s rosy. Fans can ignore 30% possession and seven shots conceded to opponents when said tactics deliver wins and results. When that’s not the case, such an approach catches the visceral ire of fans.
It’s not as if the Hammers’ low possession figures are rewarded with a sturdy defence. Only three sides have conceded more than their 63 goals this season. All three, Burnley, Luton and Sheffield United, are in the relegation zone.
When the system designed to tighten up the defence is failing to do so, change is needed. West Ham are fortunate Jarrod Bowen and Mohammed Kudus are massively overperforming their expected goals this season. Who knows where they’d be without the pair, though the numbers suggest their position would be far more precarious.
Evidently, Moyes is fast approaching his used-by date at West Ham. It has become rather stale, and the environment in the London Stadium grows increasingly toxic. This is the price they pay for the football they play.
For West Ham, with creative Brazilian Lucas Paqueta, Ajax-educated duo Edson Alvarez and Kudus as well as James Ward-Prowse and Bowen, the time is right to modernise. Especially when modern football is shifting from the David Moyes’ of the world.
Out are men far more comfortable when their side sits deep, inviting opponents to break their compact block down before attacking swiftly on the counter. In are the pressers and the ball possessors, guys who value style and substance as much as trophies and medals.
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Brighton have Roberto De Zerbi. Bournemouth have Andoni Iraola. Even Crystal Palace have modernised, replacing Roy Hodgson with Oliver Glasner. Palace dismantled West Ham 5-2, playing scintillating football with a side that, on paper, appears far less talented than West Ham’s. If the Hammers’ Conference League win over Fiorentina was a win for pragmatism over possession then Palace’s demolition of the Hammers was yet another victory for modernity over antiquity.
These three sides are just some of the many examples in modern football that slick possession play can marry defensive solidity. Based on goals conceded, Brighton boasts the Premier League’s eighth-best defence this season. Bournemouth and Crystal Palace have kept the fifth-most clean sheets (seven) this season, more than Chelsea, Spurs and West Ham.
Moyes’ persistence with deep blocks and players launching their bodies at crosses and shots is archaic, ineffective and constrictive to West Ham’s ambitions. Such tactics may raise the club’s floor, they’re also limiting their ceiling. A team with Kudus, Bowen and Paqueta shouldn’t depend on counterattacks. Yet they do.
Modern football has consistently shown the best form of defence is offence, to steal an American turn of phrase. When all else fails, a suffocating press does the job just fine. None of these things are hallmarks of a David Moyes side, even if they are the hallmarks of all great modern sides.
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Maybe West Ham fans should be careful what they wish for. Maybe moving on from Moyes will unlock their side, or maybe it will send them spiralling back down the ladder. Maybe he’s maximised the conditions he’s given, overachieving in a league loaded with financial behemoths funded by nation-states and hedge fund billionaires.
Yet, just because a risk exists does not mean a leap should not be taken. West Ham are where they are because of Moyes. Cycles end, and journeys come to a close. Moyes has taken the Hammers as far as he can in his second chapter at the club. The time is right to take a bold leap towards realising their ambitions.
