16 Comments

Moyes hands down his verdict

David Moyes had mixed views on the result against Brentford as his plans for the new season continue to take shape.

After victories over Wycombe Wanderers and Ipswich it was obvious the Bees were going to be an entirely different test – a sterner challenge and so it turned out.

Sadly it also meant that we have yet to keep a clean sheet in the three pre-season and as a result the manager wasn’t bubbling over with excitement at the end of the 90 minutes.

It’s always best to be a little cautious at this time of pre-season but there has been some encouraging signs from the Hammers that they may well be ready to start in the same way as they finished.

But Moyes wasn’t entirely happy with the manner of the victory over Brentford and happily gave a pretty neutral verdict on the win.

Speaking to West Ham TV after the 2-1 win he said: “I wasn’t feeling so good at half-time because I didn’t think we played very well [in the first half], so I was a bit disappointed with our performance.

But look, we’re in pre-season, we knew how it was going to be and we chopped and changed the team today. We gave most of the players 45 minutes so it was always going to be a little up and down.

Ultimately, it was a good exercise for us. Brentford are a good team as people know. It was never going to be an easy game wherever you play them.

Quite easily Brentford could have been a Premier League team this season as we’re all aware. There were bits of the game we were happy with and bits that we weren’t. I thought we improved and were much better in the second half. We controlled the game a bit more in the second half.”

 

 

 

About Hugh5outhon1895

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!" Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

16 comments on “Moyes hands down his verdict

  1. I totally agree with Moyes on his concerns about our all-round performance against a good championship side, albeit a side that narrowly missed out on promotion to the Premiership. The one thing we all have to be aware of going forward is that after our battle for survival, many things which became clear and should still be a the forefront of our minds is the fact that this team needs better players in “key” positions and has been this way for a few seasons now. An injury to “ANY” of our key first-team players will put the team in a vulnerable position and when the “Blame Game” starts, there should be only one place to look, and that is above David Moyes towards the owners of the club.
    We all need to clearly understand this position as the players that weren’t up for the fight last time, will be the same this time. The players that haven’t been good enough over at least the last few seasons, still won’t be good enough this time around.
    Getting by may not be good enough this time around, if we keep on rolling the dice, no matter who the manager or coaching team is, you’re going to be found out. I don’t claim to be a financial genius but I would like to think that the people in charge are smart enough to find a creative solution to a potential disaster…. Especially knowing that they sat through the nail-biting finale just a couple of months back and that IF we had been relegated, it would’ve been meltdown for the club. You can’t hire a manager without giving him the ability and funds to do his job.
    I hope people remember this when being critical of the manager if things go badly, through a loss of form or injury to key players.

    • Totally agree with both of you. If the owners do not give Moyes the funds to strengthen at the back (with LB the clear priority) then we will be in a relegation scrap. And Moyes must play Johnson ahead of Fredericks.

  2. If West Ham do not strengthen the left and right backs and continually allowed crosses because the players they have their at the moment are inept at stopping them, West Ham will continually being unable to keep a clean sheet.

  3. DM completely right that we have the makings of a decent young team that will challenge – but we need to bring in defenders. It’s a no brainer and what we’ve all been saying since Pellegrini had his last hair cut! At least Moysey knows this whereas MP only knew where to cash his cheques. I want to see a LB and RB and one more CB brought in. Johnson can be number one RB but still need cover. Masuaku is a good attacking player and can be utilised in the middle, not as LB, so I really do think we have the core makings…it’s just the defence in my eyes. Would be great to see Antonio and Haller together (Antonio just behind) with Diang and Bowen slipping balls in and in general I feel we have the front and middle sorted out. DM and co, work with players and is known to make them better, so past comments on other posts etc about being unable to improve players is absolute crap! Anyway, three defenders in will suffice from my point of view. Top 7 finish, decent cup run and I’ll buy everyone on here a nice cup of tea 🙂

    • I thought we did really well with just ogbonna in defence in that first half.

      • 🙂

        To be honest, I used to slate Oggie under Pellegrini and he didn’t seem interested – but under DM he has come back into his own and his confidence levels are way up again.

        If we just add psycho to the back line too then we’ll be champions! 🙂

  4. Nice one Jersey, looking forward to my builders tea no sugar cheers mate

  5. The players that Moyes inherited are pretty average but he is not helping himself with his team selections . He insists on picking pedestrian paced midfielders with little to offer …. how on earth did he think Wilshere and Noble could work ??? ….We are in no different position to last season. We do not have full backs who can cut out crosses and we only have Antonio who knows where the net is but is going to be injured 50% of the time . We have the making of a decent midfield as long as Rice stays and Moyes ditches Noble and Wilshere who are way past playing at this level . Rather see Dinga and Cullen playing than the two old boys huffing and puffing as the game passes by.

  6. I agree with all the comments including DM’s evaluation. Also for me yesterday was the way the team as a unit backed off when Brentford crossed over into WH’s half allowing them to push forward and get their crosses in. This happened time and time again rather than pressing forward higher up the pitch. I noticed Brentford pressed us everytime WH came forward there seemed to be swarms of Brentford players around the likes of Diang, Anderson and Bowen. They got strangled and had to play very quick passes in order to get the ball out wide.

    My evaluation is yes to tighten up our squad individually especially at the back BUT more importantly, the team as a unit should press more especially when the opposition cross the halfway line NOT back off. This is a team unit mentality and the likes of Noble as captain should be marshaling his players to get tighter and swarm the opposition, not allowing them time to breathe rather than to be able to casually knock the ball around our 18 yard box probing for opportunities which has been happening for the last few seasons.
    Tbh, Had Brentford had a premier league striker yesterday they could have scored 4 at least.

    Teams like Sheffeid United and Burnley and even Leicester have proven that you don’t need to sign £30m players to create the correct unit mentality. You need the team to function as a hard pressing unit when defending rather than back tracking all the time. Reading passes rather than reacting after they happen. Improve the unit hard press mentality and you improve the team performance.
    If WH could win back possession a lot earlier and set the likes of Bowen and Diang on heir way whilst the opoosition are still in our half.

    I’ve been a WH supporter since I was 5 in 1975 watching them win the FC cup, so I’ve witnessed every player at our club since and the really great players for me wern’t just the likes of Cottee, McAvennie or DiCanio. They were the likes of Brooking, Devonshire, Moore and Brady. Why? because they read the intentions so well and by this they quickly broke up attacks and set the strikers on their way. They weren’t the quickest physically but they were mentally and pressed players.

    So if Moyes can install the hard press mentality rather than backing off and to improve the players’ anticipation then I’m sure we would concede fewer goals and possibly score more!

    • Totally agree with you about Noble and Wiltshire. Noble is too old and slow he has past his best years, Wiltshire is a total waste of money. We need a midfield with pace someone who can support the forwards and the defense, a box to box player. Also, get rid of Cresswell every team knows his weakness that he doesn’t close the opposition down, he always backs off allowing the opposition runner to receives passes in the crucial area of pitch leading goals.

    • “Back off” you mean “defend” don’t you? You obviously never played as a defender. Backing off is the art of defending. You can not defend without backing off. The top teams attack as a “unit” as you call it and defend as a unit. Professionals call it attacking as a team, and defending as a team. Also defending starts from the front. The back four should be the last line of defence. The last resort, not the first.

  7. Totally agree creswell and noble have got to go

  8. Very interesting read I agree with better coaching players can get better. My concern is the players we are losing from the youth teams. Johnson should be given a chance at R.B with Fredrick’s as cover. In his last stint Moyes utilised Masuaku further forward to good effect. The players we got in January have improved the team & even gave Noble some breathing space further forward. Cresswell has gone from reliable defender/assist type to a liability. Ogbonna has done better under D.M. My first game at Upton Park was in 1968 when we had Hurst, Peters, Bonds, Brooking & Moore it was about 40p in old money its strange that the team that finally kept us up last year only had two additions it is obvious that we have two many attacking midfielders and not enough good defenders. I fear for us if we lose Rice. One last thing why do we seem uniquely affected by the pandemic when Palace a smaller team financially can by Eze G & S wake up before we sleep walk back to the championship.

  9. Busby, is that not what Souchek does?

  10. Brentford didn’t even have their strongest squad playing and they looked almost even with us

Comments are closed.