Before the start of the EPL season we were keen on big numbers from green listed bookmakers about West Ham United being relegated. Their form was patchy and they often looked disorganised or disinterested. And we really weren’t sure that coach Slaven Bilic knew what he was doing.
So although those fears appear to have been justified so far – West Ham are slumped, like an old guy in the corner of a cheap liquor bar, in the bottom three – it was with some sadness that this column read the news that Bilic had been sacked.
We were rather hoping that Bilic would hang on long enough to do irreparable damage to West Ham’s survival chances. But, alas, the board at the Olympic Stadium have reacted. The 4-1 loss to Liverpool last time out was the final straw, coming hot on the heels of stats that showed West Ham’s players were the laziest in the league. Damning.
Help may be at hand for our relegation wager, however. David Moyes is the overwhelming favourite to replace Bilic as coach and that is not altogether bad news.
Ordinarily, we would argue that Moyes’s organisation skills and obsession with detail would keep a club in the top flight. But his reputation was damaged badly when he took Sunderland down last season. And their struggles this season in the Championship – another slumped old guy in the corner of the bar – suggest his methods have lost their luster.
Moyes could well be a dreadful fit for West Ham. They have the possibility of being ‘the odd couple’. And not in a good, humorous, enjoyable way.
Moyes is, for want of a better word, dour. There is little flair to the way his teams play. First off he sets them up to be hard to break down. They are drilled endlessly on the training ground on such basic, childish points like, where to stand when the opposition do this, or that. It is monotonous. It worked well when he was in charge at Preston and, latterly Everton.
But it does not really transfer to clubs whose ambitions are, rightly or wrongly, loftier than that. Aesthetically at least. West Ham will want to be flamboyant, pass and move and attack with gusto. That has always been their way, their ethos. They have never been a team who have prided themselves on getting 0-0 draws. In other words, not running around so much.
Sure, they should have been moving around the pitch with much more energy under Bilic but they recruited in a way that fitted the club’s traditions. Players with style. Mavericks. Enigmas. Those who think training is a bit of a jolly. This is very un-Moyes.
Can Moyes change? Well, at Manchester United Moyes had the resources, money and players to play any way he wanted. If he’d have wanted to be gung-ho, he could have been. If he wanted to counter-attack he could have done. If he wanted to meld the two traditions of United and Moyes, he could have done. But he didn’t. And he paid the price.
Moyes and West Ham are a contradiction. For this reason, the +250 (BetVictor) that West Ham are relegated is good price. It will be shorter when Moyes gets the job.
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