The ex- West Ham centre back Tony Gale has been giving his views on our poor season during a recent interview with TALKsport
“It’s been a little bit of a hard watch. I think if you take it in perspective of the last couple of seasons… there’s very fine lines in the Premier League like losing 1-0 or winning 1-0… West Ham were riding high, nicking games, but it hasn’t happened this season and it’s been a really hard watch lately, especially last week even if they did get two vital wins…
“I’m a little bit 50-50 on that (Moyes leaving regardless in the summer), because he’s done such a really good job at West Ham and we tend to forget how good it has been in the last couple of seasons.
Moyes has tried to change things
“He’s had problems this season, which believe it or not a lot of managers do have in previous seasons, where you’ve got a decent squad, you’re doing well and week in, week out you’re not really changing the team. Then all of a sudden everybody’s going ‘Oh you need a new centre forward, you need a classy midfield player’. They go and get those players and they haven’t really hit the floor running.
“He’s reverted back to type, that’s what he did at the weekend, he got his tried and tested players back in to get the result against Fulham.
“When you try and progress, and make the football a little bit better, it’s so hard to attain that while getting results at the same time. And those fine lines is what’s happened.”
Gale also felt that the last two seasons have caught up with West Ham as they are beginning to ‘look a bit leggy’
Personally, I find that to get true perspective and understanding you have to look at and listen to opposing opinions, especially from professionals who have played the game for a living and have a technical understanding of what is happening behind the scenes and the development of the squad.
What Tony Gale says makes sense and it isn’t the first time I have heard professional opinions like his.
It’s very obvious to most of us why we’re struggling. Moyes obviously believes that our players are best when we play this style of ‘sit back, hoof & counter’ football. The fact that he’s not changing our approach is because he doesn’t believe our players are capable of playing a different style. Most of us disagree.