Archive for December 12, 2020
Win at Leeds Brings West Ham Back to Fifth
“The Moyesiah is on the rise,” The Telegraph wrote after yet another Hammers win which lifted them up the table to fifth. Though David Moyes is unlikely to ever make the Fifa shortlist for the world’s best coach – as Leeds’ Marcelo Bielsa did on the day of this game – he really deserves praise for his team’s newfound steel, fulfilling a promise he gave when he came back to London one year ago to replace Pellegrini last December to save the Hammers from relegation for a second time:
The Scot said that he refused to consider surviving Premier League relegation a “success” and insisted that in the long term his ambitions sat far higher than that. The manager wanted a cultural reset – away from the view he had of West Ham when he was at Everton, namely of a “flaky, inconsistent” side.
That was a view, he said, that was reinforced by one of his earliest memories from the first time he was appointed manager in November 2017, when Watford were his first opponents. “My biggest memory from that night was Marko [Arnautovic] coming off with a sore finger,” said the Scot. “I thought ‘my goodness, what is this I have got here?’. It was my perception [that West Ham were soft] and a lot of managers would still see it that way. It is something we need to change. We have to alter that culture.”
After a summer transfer window which didn’t make the Hammers fans happy with attacking prospect Grady Diangana leaving and seemingly only full back Vladimir Coufal coming in, David Moyes was promised a tough season, but he has really done a very good job so far!
Moyes, at the final whistle at Leeds, was engulfed in a huddle with captain Declan Rice screaming: “Come on.” The Hammers’ points tally is all the more impressive given they have had a tough start to the campaign, and had felt some injustice. West Ham celebrated an impressive and hugely deserved victory over Leeds – overcoming yet another VAR controversy.
The match at Elland Road was an outstanding, thrilling, end-to-end match. West Ham was the better team and their win, coming from behind after having conceded from a controversial retaken penalty in the seventh minute of the game, was well deserved. Their goals came from set pieces: Tomáš Souček levelled with a towering header from a corner midway through the opening period, before the visitors turned the screw in the final quarter and were eventually rewarded with Angelo Ogbonna’s winner when the full back headed in a free kick from Cresswell ten minutes from the end.
EXTRA TIME 
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