ONE OF THE MORE infamous signings of a bygone era at West Ham will be facing the club as an opponent – or rather, in charge of their opponents – tomorrow in the Hammers’ first pre-season official fixture at Southend.
Just nine minutes into his second West Ham appearance in 2007 Kieron Dyer suffered an horrific double leg fracture in a Carling Cup game and missed over a year: His whole West Ham career was limited to 35 appearances in four seasons and a modest two assists in that timescale as the former England International’s career was blighted with injury.
Former Hammer Dyer is now embarking on a fledgling Managerial career
Fast forward nineteen years and Dier is now the manager of tomorrow’s opponents Southend United, this being his first managerial appointment following the departure of of former boss Kevin Maher. It marks something of an enormous milestone and personal triumph for Dyer who underwent lifesaving transplant surgery in 2023.
Southend’s website makes it clear what the Shrimpers’ board saw in the former Hammer:
Player turned manager Kieron Dyer
“What stood out throughout the process was his clarity of thought. He has a very clear understanding of how he wants his teams to play, how he develops players and how he builds a high-performance environment”
Dyer arrived at Southend after a successful stint as First-Team Coach at Chesterfield. He has been tasked with rebuilding the squad: Much like his vastly more experienced opponent Nuno Espírito Santo who has a major ‘reshape’ – as he likes to call it – on his hands to prepare West Ham’s relegated squad for a successful Championship campaign.
Whilst West Ham’s coaching staff will see this as merely a rung on the ladder to full fitness ahead of next month’s season start, it will be intriguing to see which of Nuno’s big complement of youngsters – especially in midfield – get to perform alongside their former Premier League team mates.
Make or break seasons seem to lie ahead for, in particular, George Earthy and Lewis Orford, both former academy players seeking to ramp up their careers after West Ham’s relegation.
Instead of re-shaping how about re-styling? Not as in ‘you know what? I’m going for a blue rinse at the hairdressers today’ but as in a different style of football from 5 at the back with all 3 CBs looking lost and nobody actually in command of the defensive line-up.
A change in style as in having players with enough ability & suitable coaching/training, to keep the ball, be skillful, change tempo, assess the opposition on the pitch and most of all play inventive, attacking football. If Todibo goes AWOL off to the left, another player, even from midfield will be intelligent enough to drop to cover instead of yanking the lad off, so there is movement instead of the ‘stodgy as pudding’ style of football from last season.
Going to take a lot more than whimsical reshaping to play worthwhile football.
Top post Peter Whu.
Let’s get back to discussing our philosophy of how we want to see our teams playing. Coupled with the profile of coaching staff that can facilitate it.
This has to be a priority going forward, the rest takes care of itself.
Bring back Carr and Redknapp into consulting role’s to reimbed our culture, as both link back to Greenwood (RIP).
Southend joined West Ham and Spurs in this new trend of winning your first trophy for years and then changing the manager. 😊⚒️⚒️