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Back to square one: Moyes is the “new” manager!

December 29, 2019 at 11:29 pm Leave a comment

West Ham United have quickly found Manuel Pellegrini’s successor in appointing his predecessor: On Sunday, less than 24 hours after Pelle’s sacking the Club confirmed that David Moyes has returned to West Ham as their new manager to succeed Manuel Pellegrini.

Moyes has signed an 18-month deal and begins work immediately ahead of the New Year’s Day fixture with AFC Bournemouth at London Stadium.

Joint-Chairman David Sullivan said: “David proved in his short time with the Club (18 months ago) that he was capable of getting results and we believe that he will start moving the Club in the right direction.”

The Scotsman first came into the east London managerial position after Slaven Bilic’s resignation in autumn 2017 and led West Ham to a safe finish of the 2017-18 season, transforming Marko Arnautovic from an unlucky winger into a proliferous central striker in the process.

Moyes then was found unfit by the board to help West Ham reach “the next level” and his short-term contract was not extended beyond the end of the season. Instead Manuel Pellegrini was appointed of whom we thought that his reign would be the start of a “revolution” and bring back attacking football dubbed as the “West Ham way”. That has worked for some time during his first season, though there also had been some slumps and consistency was lacking. But then Pellegrini turned out to be a “one trick pony” and he proved unable to instil new confidence into a Club that was in downfall from the beginning of October until now.

This time David Moyes was hired not only until the end of the season but on the basis of an 18-months-contract. Let’s wish him well and hope he will be able to strengthen the squad in the January transfer window. However, when Moyes said last night that he rated the current squad even higher than the one he oversaw in 2017-18, this could be a hint that he won’t have enough funds to do big business in the window. Two years ago his recruiting of striker Jordan Hugill did not prove a success, so let’s hope his decisions will be better this time.

But first of all Moyes quickly has to instill new confidence in to the frustrated squad to bring West Ham back to winning ways. We’re desperately in need of points to avoid dropping further down the table, as the Hammers are sitting just one point above the relegation zone.

Moyes said that it felt “fabulous to be back”: “I’ve missed being here because I really enjoyed it and I feel like I’ve got unfinished business, so I can’t wait to get started.

“I’m feeling very proud that I’m back here, but more importantly I’ll be looking to see what I can do, what improvements I can make and how we can get some wins.”

Come on you Irons!

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