Poor old David Moyes is feeling the heat after Wst Ham suffered their heaviest home defeat in 61 years against Arsenal this weekend, with the Hammers fan sites asking if it one defeat too far for Moyes, despite taking West Ham to their first trophy in 40 years at the end of last season.
To be fair our London neighbours are not in any dire position in the League, but having already conceded 5 goals twice this season before the Arsenal game, it is no surprise that questions are being asked.
I do sympathise with Moyes a bit, because he played us at a bad time with this Arsenal side having a very purple patch and it was unlikely that any team would have got near us on that performance and the Hammers were just unlucky to be in the firing line. So it is fair for Moyes to ask the West Ham fans to have a bit of perspective. “It’s a day we don’t want to really remember,” he said on WHUFC.com. “I don’t know the reason why [the players weren’t at it today]. We’ve had a week’s preparation, and we’ve tried to try to do things the way we would do in a normal lead-up to a weekend game.”
“From minute one, we could hardly lay a glove on them, we didn’t get close to them and we probably showed them a bit too much respect. Then we started to make some really, really stupid decisions in our distribution and our passing and when we should pass or when we should play forward and just too many things were wrong today.”
“It’s not like us. We are normally pretty strong at set pieces in both boxes and today Arsenal were very good at them. They work really hard at it and have got a really good set-piece coach and you could see that by what they’ve done today.”
“It’s not about the players and not about the manager. It’s how we all get together and I’ve said that to the players. How we respond now is really going to be big and probably the levels we need to show we’re going to have to show, we’re going to have to show a bigger level of fight and commitment. Over my time here at West Ham, whether it be this period or the one before, I really can’t remember too many of my teams performing as badly defensively and if we have done in the past maybe we maybe didn’t quite have the same level of defenders or maybe not the same level of players.”
“I look back and when I came in we had to try and avoid relegation, and we avoided relegation. The journey we’ve all been on in the last three or four years trying to qualify for Europe, getting to a semi-final, and you all know the good times we had in Prague about six months ago.”
“That will not make people feel too much happier with today’s result, but I think it’s just important that we remember that those good times in football can also be bad times and today was a bad day for us.”
Well, Moyes was very reasonable and I honestly don’t think he will be sacked, especially as West Ham are still in 8th place and in touching distance of a European slot next season. And another point in his defence is that is the first defeat against Arsenal this season at the third attempt, which is probably another reason the Hammers were not expecting a massacre.
But Moyes could look on the bright side, at least he won’t have to play Arsenal again this season!
THE HAMMERS GOT HAMMERED! Watch the latest podcast from our friends at Dublin Arsenal after our demolition of West Ham….
More must-reads: