Last week, one of those ubiquitous YouTube fan channels that probably do a lot of good in keeping supporters informed but which only seem to fuel a hyperbolic whirlwind and exist as one mush of angry presenters for whom only the accents change, led with the headline “Moyes under HUGE pressure”.
The presenter, a genial cove with an East End accent that could cut glass, detailed the pros and cons of sacking the manager now or later. As that video was published, West Ham were three points off the top six in the Premier League.
The only time in the last 24 years they have finished in the top six was under David Moyes. They had just confirmed top spot in their Europa League group and had reached the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup by beating Arsenal. These are not your natural laboratory conditions for the spit-flecked cries of crisis, you have to concede.
The most surprising part of this performative anger hype? It was an entirely accurate reflection of the situation. Moyes was under “HUGE pressure”. Had West Ham failed to beat Wolves on Sunday (they won 3-0), there would have been persistent calls for him to lose his job.
As it is, the only changes are that West Ham are now two points off the top six and got thumped in their quarter-final at Liverpool. Life’s tough at the top and tougher at the bottom. It’s sometimes toughest in the middle.
If nothing else, Moyes is getting used to this P45 hokey cokey. In April, when West Ham lost 5-1 at home to Newcastle United, he came as close as ever to losing his job.
The atmosphere at the London Stadium was toxic, or at least as febrile as an athletics bowl with every fan half a mile from the pitch can get.
Moyes’ post-match assessment was a masterclass in dark humour: “I thought that the first and second goal were incredibly poor but I suppose it doesn’t help when they don’t come close to how bad the third and fourth were.”
Two months later, Moyes won the first major trophy of his managerial career and West Ham their first in almost 50 years.
The videos of Moyes returning to the hotel, drunk with the type of all-encompassing contentment (and actual alcohol) that seems to create a hazy glow around your person, caught you off guard emotionally. He’d tried so hard and done so much and, weeks after thinking he was done, triumph had sought him out.
Moyes is at least partly responsible for his eternally uncertain existence. He has taken 63 points from his last 50 Premier League matches in charge, or 48 points over the course of a season – enough to keep you up but not feel particularly warm and fuzzy about it.
It’s the lurching nature of West Ham’s results that have become a mirror held up against the manager’s own safety. Since April 2022, West Ham have lost five league games in a row, four in a row and three in a row twice.
They have conceded five against Newcastle, four against Crystal Palace, five against Fulham, four against Aston Villa and three against Brentford over the last eight months alone. The five conceded at Anfield caused anger because Moyes picked an understrength team – West Ham haven’t won a domestic trophy since 1980.
Each time, Moyes and West Ham recover and they have used European excellence (albeit largely against weaker opponents) to ease the worst of the league form.
But it’s still only once in almost two years that West Ham have won more than two successive games in the Premier League and even then it was only three and even then it was immediately followed by four points in seven matches. It sells Moyes, fairly or otherwise, as an expert reactor to crisis rather than a proactive creator of calm.
The timing also makes a difference. Were this Moyes’ first West Ham rodeo, there might be greater incentive to believe that something greater than itself is building. Like Roy Hodgson at Crystal Palace, the inadvertent impression is that by going back you are going backwards.
It presents you as ballast, necessary filler between those who the club desperately wants. That is unfair, at least in this case: you could make an argument that by re-appointing a manager you regretted ever losing them. But combine it with staccato form and you are magnetised towards the perception of you others have created, a hostage to your own fortune.
Moyes’ tactical reputation is likely unhelpful (disclaimer, again: a faintly ridiculous take given the league position and trophy). Over the 50-game sample size, West Ham have scored 69 goals, fewer than Brentford and Fulham amongst many others.
The accusation is that Moyes had been handed a series of ingredients that should allow him to play more expansive, entertaining football – Mohammed Kudus, Lucas Paqueta, Jarrod Bowen – and risks wasting them through over-pragmatism and an intent to sit back when holding a lead. West Ham have lost seven Premier League games since the start of last season despite leading; no team has done so more.
The numbers back up the charges of attacking sluggishness. Twelve teams take more shots than West Ham and an attacking unit containing Bowen, Kudus and Paqueta is better than most.
They rank 16th for possession and 17th for touches in the final third of the pitch. And yet this safety-first plan does not make West Ham safe. Only the bottom three have conceded more goals so far this season and only three teams have allowed more shots.
If the counsel for the prosecution is resting its case, therefore, it is after letting those numbers settle for a moment. West Ham win games.
They look very good in patches of most of their matches. They are, by almost every broad measure, doing well. But in the specifics, it’s hard to work out what they are best at. Given that their manager will mark his fourth anniversary next week, that is slightly baffling to those who watch his team each week.
And then, as ever in this cyclical, unending argument without an obvious answer, a dissenting voice pipes up to point out the league position and the last result and oh god we’re in danger of getting stuck in a Moyesian loop.
The reality: Moyes will always be under “HUGE” pressure because his is a style that relies upon constant progress to distract from its weaknesses and his teams are never good enough for constant progress to be possible. Some day it won’t be enough. Until then, Moyes will do his best to please most of the people most of the time. He’ll probably just about take that.