The second coming of David Moyes as West Ham United manager has not gone down well with fans.
West Ham fans respect Moyes for the solid job he did in his brief first spell.
But supporters are furious with owners David Sullivan and David Gold and what the re-appointment of Moyes represents.
In many ways it encapsulates the decade-long tenure of unpopular duo; cheap, unambitious and so far out of touch with fan expectations it is not true.
Most West Ham fans agreed Manuel Pellegrini had to go.
Moyes picks Noble’s brains on West Ham return
Two wins in 14 will do that to any manager.
Moyes had been lined up long before Pellegrini was sacked on Saturday night. The Scot was unveiled 24 hours later.
And in his first press conference on Monday he revealed he had held court with captain Mark Noble on his first day back. It was a conversation he said was ‘very helpful’.
No doubt Moyes was picking the skipper’s brains on where and what he felt was going wrong.
It begs the question was Noble instrumental in Moyes’s return to the club?
After all the homegrown Hammers captain did not hide his contempt for Pellegrini’s tactics.
In fact in what is a frankly unprecedented manner, Noble regularly used his column in The Evening Standard to question the Chilean’s influence.
Was skipper instrumental in second coming?
Speaking in his last Evening Standard column ahead of the Southampton game last month, Noble publicly criticised Pellegrini’s tactics despite knowing full well the pressure the Chilean was under.
Noble suggested – not for the first time – that West Ham needed to move away from Pellegrini’s expansive football and focus on being solid instead.
West Ham’s official website regurgitated some of Noble’s column describing it as ‘typically honest’. But tellingly the club omitted the parts where Noble criticises Pellegrini’s tactics.
It wasn’t the first time Noble had criticised Pellegrini either.
Speaking in another of his column’s in The Evening Standard, Noble said Pellegrini’s message was simply not getting through to his teammates, who kept making the same mistakes time and again.
Noble’s Pellegrini outbursts made feelings clear to owners
But perhaps Noble’s biggest show of frustration came in his last match under the Chilean.
Noble went for teammate Angelo Ogbonna during West Ham’s 2-1 defeat at Crystal Palace on Boxing Day. It came after the Italian criticised Noble for a sloppy pass which had put the team under pressure.
He had to be dragged away from Ogbonna by teammates.
Noble – and Ogbonna – were then both dropped for the defeat to Leicester with Pellegrini insisted they were rested due to the quick turnaround.
Reports claimed West Ham’s owners sought the opinions of senior West Ham stars before firing Pellegrini (The Daily Mail).
If true, Noble would have been chief among them.
Noble has been reiterating the need for his teammates to graft and focus on grinding out wins rather than play pretty football.
That is very much Moyes’s mantra, as he reiterated on his first day back (whufc.com).
Further evidence Noble was keen for Moyes to return to replace Pellegrini came in the form of a statement from the captain published on the official site this week.
Some will argue Noble is just being honest. And nobody doubts he always has the club’s best interests at heart.
But for many others, particularly those taking aim at the owners, it will not sit well.
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