The move to sign Danny Ings represents a significant shift in transfer policy after Moyes spent huge sums on overseas talent – including the likes of Gianluca Scamacca, Lucas Paqueta and Nayef Aguerd – last summer, with the Scot admitting he has had to deviate from his original plan in a bid to turn around the Hammers’ fortunes.
He isn’t the first and won’t be the last manager to use odd turns of phrase to explain or possibly disguise a situation which is as bad as it gets.
Asked whether he has been was worried about his future he declared: “No, I’ve not. What I do think is I’ve had to go off-piste a little bit, because obviously we bought in players and we wanted it to happen.
“We tried to break it a little bit in the summer to try to move it onto another level because I’d seen signs that we weren’t quite going the way we wanted to.
[Now] we’ve had to go and do things slightly differently because of the position we’re in at the moment.”
What is actually means is: My plan went wrong!