By Hughie Southon
David Moyes has stood up to be counted with a big admission about his summer spending spree.
The Hammers boss spent £180 million which with agents fees, National Insurance and all the rest would have topped £200 million.
That was clearly based on his success and a desperate need to deepen the squad which many have maintained was not good enough.
Others have since made it clear they haven’t been overly impressed with the way the money was spent and Moyes admits things really have not worked out as he would have liked
It’s a big admission from a manager who has had enormous support from the board and remains in his job despite constant calls for him to be sacked.
Lucas Paqueta played a key role in the victory against Saints.
In an interview with Sky Sports he declared: “We brought in a lot of new players and I decided that we needed to make a few changes to continue trying to grow the club and move the team on,” West Ham boss David Moyes exclusively tells Sky Sports.
“But I don’t think it’s necessarily just down to the changes, we’ve had a lot of players here that maybe have not shown the form they have shown in recent seasons.
“We’ve introduced a lot of new players, and in the Premier League it takes time.
“I have to be honest and say that it’s not worked as well as I would’ve liked.
“It would’ve been hard for us not to buy any players,” Moyes says, “so if we were going to buy cheap players then we would’ve been saying it was the wrong thing to do.
“In the summer, we brought in two Italian internationals [Scamacca and Emerson Palmieri]. We brought in a Brazilian international [Paqueta], a Moroccan international [Nayef Aguerd], a German international [Thilo Kehrer], which we felt were good enough to make our squad stronger for the Premier League and for Europe.
“I still believe wholeheartedly that we’ve got a much stronger squad.
“Are we playing as well as a team this year? No, we’re not. But ultimately that’s the next stage, we’ve got to try and get that, we’ve got to get them all blended in.”
With a squad flooded full of international quality, many consider West Ham too good to go down – including the statisticians.
Opta’s Season Predictor gives them just a 15 per cent chance of being relegated, with only Crystal Palace and Leicester having a lower percentage of the bottom nine teams.