David Moyes has been guaranteed the West Ham United job next season and it is a complete farce so typical of the club’s clueless owners.
West Ham insiders Claret & Hugh – who have a direct line to the club’s unpopular owners – made the claim again ahead of the dismal return to action against Wolves at the weekend.
A pathetic performance saw the Hammers register just one shot on target in a 2-0 defeat.
The Hammers looked like a team going through the motions in a pre-season game. Not a club desperate to scrap for every ball and every point to ensure Premier League survival.
The loss plunges West Ham further into the relegation mire with just eight games to play and London rivals Tottenham and Chelsea up next.
Limp West Ham display leaves club staring relegation in the face
Moyes had three months to plan for Wolves. And the sum total of his tactical approach was to get the ball out to young Jeremy Ngakia – who leaves the club this week – and instruct him to bend long balls into a lone striker up against three towering centre backs.
It was infuriating, maddening and completely ineffective.
Once again Moyes left it far too long to make substitutions. And with the Hammers chasing the game in the midst of a relegation battle he brings on a right-back.
Ryan Fredericks has been awful since signing for West Ham. And his first contribution was to get caught under a cross, miss a header and allow Wolves to make it 2-0.
It summed up everything that is wrong with Moyes’s tactical approach.
Yes West Ham were hard hit by injuries to Angelo Ogbonna and Sebastien Haller.
But there is enough talent in their squad to produce better than this for their long suffering fans.
Relic Moyes has had his day yet is guaranteed a job next season regardless
Unfortunately what has been proved by Moyes’s woeful record of just two wins since his return to the club at the turn of the year is that David Sullivan, David Gold and the fans were right about the Scot the first time around – he is not progressive enough for the modern game.
West Ham played with no intensity, looked unfit and were tactically embarrassed by Wolves.
For anyone watching West Ham’s performance it was easy to see why Moyes has been out of a job for three of the last three and a half years.
West Ham fans have described him as a dinosaur and a relic. There was nothing on Saturday to suggest they are wrong.
Moyes has had his day in football management and his tactics, ideas and style has no place in the modern game.
He was completely outclassed by a younger, modern manager in the shape of Nuno Espirito Santo.
Even Moyes’s pie in the sky plans to try and emulate the Red Bull model at West Ham are improbable.
Managers simply do not get time to rebuild a club from the bottom up nowadays. Especially in the unforgiving and fiercely competitive Premier League.
Everyone knows where the problems start and end at West Ham
Thanks to the defeats for Bournemouth and Aston Villa against Crystal Palace and Chelsea respectively, West Ham do still have a chance of survival.
But it is looking increasingly like two from four to fill the last two relegation slots.
And with Moyes in charge, I don’t like West Ham’s odds.
The fact he has been told by Sullivan and Gold he will be the manager next season regardless of West Ham’s fate is unfathomable.
Moyes seems a thoroughly decent man.
But the majority of fans did not want Moyes back. And they certainly won’t want him sticking around if he is to oversee a disastrous relegation.
One thing that is certain is that if his side does not pull a few rabbits out of the hat between now and the end of July, West Ham WILL be playing Championship football next season with or without him at the helm.
Having been in place for half the season he should rightly carry the can.
But he did not appoint himself. And everyone knows where the problems start and end at West Ham.