David Moyes’ used to have an expression – the Moyes’ MOT – which he claimed was the personality test he applied to any possible new recruit. It wasn’t just about playing ability but character. The player in question had to leave his ego at the door and fit into the club, work for the team and be a positive pull on the squad or else Moyes didn’t want him.
Quite how those ‘intangibles’ were ever measured isn’t clear. It certainly gave Moyes an all-encompassing ‘out’ if he didn’t rate a transfer target.
Graham Potter has alluded to the same characteristics for West Ham’s recruitment this summer, stating on more than one occasion that “signing the right player for the right price, that fits how you want to play, that fits in the group, that’s the difficult thing” .
Linked just today – again – in sportwitness.co.uk is defender Oumar Solet who has had his fair share of disciplinary problems in the past: Dumped by Red Bull Salzburg due to “aggravated poor attitude and disciplinary problems” in 2024, (en.77577.com) the undoubtedly talented French defender was once tipped for great things.
Journalist Christoph Nister (tuttoudinese.it) in Italy nailed it: “There were some disciplinary problems in the past – once he didn’t make it to training, he was often late – and the club representatives decided not to have any more problems. Lijnders [the manager] had decided to let him go for free, but then a few months later he was fired”.
West Ham’s board, managers and fans have had enough of dressing room bust-ups for one year. There are enough red flags waving there for Solet to be given a very wide berth this summer!
Ravel 2?
Most football players start young and give up on academia and so consequently have the stunted mentality of 8 year olds . Anyone who’s raised kids will understand and recognize the issues .
What an incredibly uninformed sweeping statement if ever I saw one. Most category 1 academies operate on the basis of strong links with schools to ensure the child is maintaining strong grades and generally performing to a decent standard otherwise they jeopardise their rights to day realise for those who are pre scholar.
There are bright footballers and there are less so bright footballers. No different to any walk of life.
*release
Barge pole and don’t touch are 4 words that go together well
Boy how we love a bad boy we have had our fair share over the years but they most come good when playing for us so I wouldn’t right him off we have had one player in the past that no other team would give the time of day too but became a legend at our club and of course there is always two sides to every story I would be interested to know his side of things before judging him or any other player that we may be interested in
agreed, a very rational way to look at this.
Can we get him on a loan and have a look at him first?
Well, reading his character assassination, it’s a NO from me!
Same from me. It’s hard to understand why some players are as stupid with the dream job and enough lose change tgey could ski down it. Unfathomable.
Same, swerve him.
Be pure bants if he now passes the Moyes MOT and rocks up at Everton 😂
Looking at his photo?? What on earth is that suppose to mean?
That there’s a photo of the player included within the article and that the individual who posted the comment had looked at it.
I’d have thought that was obvious.
Sounds a bit like racism to me.