West Ham United manager update emerges on Luis Enrique and Unai Emery amid desire for David Moyes change
West Ham inquired about both Luis Enrique and Unai Emery but were knocked back amid behind-the-scenes attempts to find a David Moyes replacement, The Guardian reports.
The Hammers have struggled badly to match the exploits of the past two seasons for the entire campaign, and while the Scot has been left in place with the board citing a lack of other options there have apparently been tentative explorations of some big names.
Bayern Munich boss Thomas Tuchel and former Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino have previously been linked, but Aston Villa miracle worker Emery and one of the favourites to take over at Chelsea this summer, Enrique, were briefly looked into as well.
Jacob Steinberg wrote in The Guardian Saturday (15 April): “There is a desire to try something new. The hierarchy have given Moyes time, partly as recognition for his past achievements, but mostly because there have been few viable replacements.
“Thomas Tuchel and Mauricio Pochettino were not interested when West Ham contacted them earlier this season.
“Furtive inquiries about Luis Enrique and Unai Emery went nowhere.
“It meant there was caution every time Moyes was said to be one game from the sack. The message from those close to the situation was constant: there are simply no suitable alternatives.”
Wild
Any of those four names would have been a giant upgrade on the current situation, and probably also on even the successful version of Moyes that had performed so well prior to this season.
It appears that rather than there being no suitable alternatives, the club has been deemed unsuitable by a host of top coaches.
Questions will surely have to be asked about why that is, given a famous club with a newly-stocked squad and a big, albeit controversial, stadium, should be attractive.
Perhaps Tuchel and Pochettino are understandable misses due to their recent links to London rivals and their presence in all the conversations for European super club jobs, as evidenced by German giants Bayern ejecting wunderkind Julian Nagelsmann to secure the ex-Chelsea boss before someone else did.
But former Barcelona and Spain boss Enrique has only emerged as a front-runner for a Premier League job since Graham Potter was axed at Stamford Bridge a fortnight ago (2 April), and has had multiple sets of talks over it [Independent, 5 April] so it is deflating to hear that went nowhere either.
And Emery above all will leave West Ham fans cursing in light of the stunning turnaround he has sparked at Villa Park since replacing Steven Gerrard – turning a relegation battle into a Champions League push in a reverse of the process at the London Stadium over the past year.
West Ham were comfortably more successful than Villa in both of the previous two seasons, so unless the Hammers, bold as brass, attempted to actually lure him from their league rivals it may set alarm bells ringing that the Birmingham club secured him to such great effect when there was apparently no chance of him arriving in East London.
It is perhaps slightly encouraging to learn that the hierarchy has at least attempted to investigate Moyes replacements amid a dismal season, but the exact opposite that they were so unsuccessful.