Though David Moyes’ six-month stint at West Ham in 2017/18 was nothing to write home about he did admittedly do the job he was brought in for.
With the club floundering in the bottom three and rudderless following the sacking of Slaven Bilic, the immediate priorities were to get some points on the board and better organise a team in collective disarray. With an unremarkable but sufficient win ratio of 29% from his 31 games in charge the seasoned Scot fulfilled that criteria and the Hammers eventually finished thirteenth and safe.
Two years on and despite spending lavishly on a number of new faces, and bringing in a coach the owners regarded as being ‘high-calibre’ in Manuel Pellegrini, the East London outfit are now experiencing an unfortunate case of deju vu.
Relegation is a real threat. A beleaguered side have careered from one poor result to another. It makes sense then – or at least it is not outright insanity – that the West Ham board thought it shrewd last week to re-appoint Moyes on another short-term contract and essentially hope that history repeats itself. After all, a second short, sharp shock of pragmatism certainly can’t do any harm.
And so far – though we are very much on the opening page – all is going to plan. A resounding 4-0 win over Bournemouth on New Years’ Day was just the tonic a team and fan-base bereft of confidence needed and, suddenly, where so recently there was only doom and gloom, there is hope.
That is that, your honour. In the People vs David Moyes and West Ham’s decision to re-employ him, the defence rests.
Even if it lacks a smoking gun or mic-drop moment it is a sound enough defence but now let’s turn to the prosecution to see what they have to say on the matter.
David Moyes was not only the wrong man for West Ham, he would be the wrong man for any club with meaningful aspirations. He is as uninspiring as a dishcloth. He is anchored to a bygone age that entirely trusts endeavour over artistry. In his six years since leaving Everton – a club with which he excelled by and large – he has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that he is a manager of restricted means, with scant in-game imagination or ambition and even less tactical flair.
At Manchester United, he saw his reputation stripped away in layers in the most public, embarrassing and disastrous manner imaginable as the title-holders plummeted down the table until his inevitable sacking spared him of further indignities ten months in.
His arrival had him acclaimed as ‘the chosen one’ due to being handpicked by his predecessor Sir Alex Ferguson. His departure had him damned by one and all; a national punchline for his managerial ineptitude and sole purchase of the agricultural Marouanne Fellaini.
With his reputation in tatters a move abroad was considered for the best but at Real Sociedad he flopped again losing 15 of his 42 games at the helm. The football was predictable and lacklustre; a fair reflection of their coach. Then at Sunderland yet another ill-fated spell left them relegated, rock bottom of the Premier League in a relentlessly dispiriting campaign that also revealed he had threatened to ‘slap’ a female reporter as the scrutiny mounted.
Both Sociedad and the Mackems had hoped that the unravelling that had occurred at Old Trafford was ultimately a blip and that the alchemy conjured on Merseyside a long time ago could be somehow rediscovered. It was a gamble that cost them very dear.
“I would still consider myself in the elite group of managers. If it was me against someone else I’d trust myself,” the defamed manager said last year. “You get knocks but you get back on the horse.”
And here is where we get to the really exasperating aspect of David Moyes’ and his proverbial nine lives.
Because in any other walk of life his ‘trust’ in himself would be utterly irrelevant after six years of almost constant failure: it would be the distinct lack of trust shown by others that would matter. In everyday life. In relationships. In almost all work spaces. In business. If lucky you might get a second chance, a third in exceptional circumstances. A fourth? A fifth? You must be joking.
Yet in football – a business worth billions and as cut-throat as they come – there is a bizarre, nonsensical long-standing cultural trope to stick with what they know, even when what they know is wrong. Failed at a club? Here’s another one. Failed again? Here, have another go.
You get back on the horse, in Moyes’ words, spoken with the awareness of how screwed up his industry is and the innate confidence that comes from that.
Anyone else would be made to walk for the rest of their sorry days.