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Simon Jordan has called out Declan Rice, Jarrod Bowen and Tomas Soucek for their poor showings for West Ham this season as David Moyes faces the sack.
The Hammers sit one point above the relegation zone after their 4-0 defeat to Brighton in the Premier League last weekend (4 March), and manager Moyes is now under heavy pressure for his job.
However while speaking to talkSPORT (6 March), Jordan believes that while the result was dreadful there are players who deserve to be pointed out for their poor form this season just as much as the manager, including £100m man Rice.
“Look, it’s a dreadful result at the weekend. But then again I think at this moment in time Brighton are one of the form teams in the Premier League. One of the best teams in the Premier League and the only reason they don’t get that accreditation is because they’re Brighton, not Liverpool or Manchester City, or Manchester United, or Arsenal, or Tottenham.
“West Ham need to pull themselves together. Moyes made some pointed observations about who wants to come with him a couple of weeks ago, got a decent result against Nottingham Forest where they looked far better. Were okay against Man United, a little bit unlucky in the cup. Then they go again in the league and boom, get their heads handed to them again.
“David again talks about players coming with him and qualified that by saying they’re a good group. I worry that David is veering into football manager territory by talking about what was done before.
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“If they get relegated from this division, which I don’t think they will, but if they were to get relegated, runs in Europe and finishing in the top half of the league will be a scant consolation to anybody. David needs to refocus and re-centre, to try and get a methodology to get this team doing slightly better.
“The arguments that players like Soucek and Bowen, who were key components of this side previously, haven’t turned up are beginning to diminish because those players are better in recent weeks, but the team performance isn’t.
“Players like Declan Rice that people make a lot of noise about, have got to do far better than they’re doing. Because they’re supposed £100-120m footballers and they’re not the only reason, but they’re the sort of players you turn to to get out of these situations when you’re in the cart.”
Accountability
West Ham fans have had plenty of people to be angry at this season, with Moyes holding a lot of the anger and rightly so.
But the players simply haven’t been good enough either and have done absolutely nothing to help him achieve the goals of the season, and realistically they have to take a lot of the blame too.
Rice has quite clearly had his head turned by the transfer stories over recent years, while Jarrod Bowen’s form this year has been a shadow of the form he showed last year that got him in the England squad and Tomas Soucek has been wanted by fans to be dropped for ages now.
None of them have been good enough, and while there have been signs of progress in the odd period this season, none of them have done enough.
Jordan is right to call them out, but that doesn’t abscond Moyes of blame either and he must also be held responsible for the troubles this season.