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Jeff Stelling and Clinton Morrison query David Moyes West Ham United future after Leicester loss
Clinton Morrison admits there are a “few concerns” for David Moyes at West Ham after they were beaten at home by Leicester City.
The Hammers lost 2-0 at the London Stadium on Saturday (12 November) for their third successive Premier League loss heading into the World Cup break, prompting Sky Sports host Jeff Stelling to question whether the manager’s job was now in question.
The defeat dropped them to 16th in the table, where they will stay until at least Boxing Day when they return to action, but Morrison has plenty of faith in the Irons boss and what he can still do in the second half of the season.
Speaking live on Sky Sports Soccer Saturday after the game (5.31pm) Stelling asked: “Any concerns for David Moyes at West Ham?”
Morrison responded: “There’s a few concerns, but I’m not worried about David Moyes. He’s a fantastic manager, he will get it right. Look how good West Ham had done last season, he’s got loads of credit in the bank. At the moment it’s just not clicking for them.
“I feel like [Lucas] Paqueta, who’s their star man, he wants to get forward and create stuff. And you know what David Moyes does, he sets up really defensively, and I think West Ham fans want to see them starting on the front foot more often, not chasing the game and then going for it.
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“But you can never question David Moyes, the job he’s done at West Ham, I’m not worried about West Ham. They’ll start climbing the table.”
Slump
It’s been a matter of one step forward and two steps back for most of the season, and just when the Irons were putting together a good run of results through October, November came along and cancelled them out.
The encouraging win with the fringe players and the youthful debutants in the final Europa Conference League group game looked to have lifted spirits again on 3 November, but the likes of Flynn Downes and Pablo Fornals went straight back to the bench after and there hasn’t been another win since.
It is not a full scale disaster, and it seems unlikely still that West Ham will end up in a genuine relegation battle in the new year, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the season won’t turn out how had been hoped.
A gap of 13 points between fifth-placed Manchester United, heading into Sunday, and bottom-placed Wolves shows how quickly fortunes can still change in a unique World Cup-affected season.
But whenever players seem to be coming into form and the team is finding some rhythm it then quickly dissipates again and has to be rebuilt from scratch.
Perhaps the rushed nature of the opening few months has made Moyes’ management style less effective, with extra fixtures in quicker succession than usual, and the injuries that are likely also a by-product have been an issue.
As attentions shift to the World Cup Moyes will need to devise a plan for after Christmas that recreates the best parts of last season, when a bare-bones squad formed a cohesive unit.
Finally strengthened in the summer the manager generally hasn’t got enough out of his expensive recruits, and while he shouldn’t be under real pressure he certainly has questions to answer at this stage of the season.