Daily Mail Sport’s chief football reporter Sami Mokbel has recently claimed that West Ham United manager David Moyes will be leaving his post this summer, and strongly suggested that the 60 year old former Scottish centre half only lasted this long because of our incredible Europa Conference League success last season.
Every Hammer knows that last season’s Premier League form was woeful, and whatever did not click domestically, exploded into life in our European qualifying campaign and then our eventual journey to a very successful final to pick up a first Euro trophy since 1965. For fans who like a flutter and could regularly look towards the likes of official site GGBET for odds on their upcoming games, few – if any – would have seen last season’s success coming until the very late stages as it was almost too good to be true given our league form.
Ultimately, Moyes did also keep us up and despite a difficult summer that saw plenty of off pitch disagreements about how we moved forward, there was significant change to the playing squad and 12 games in we are sat pretty comfortably in ninth place in the table, and we are in joint top spot in our Europa League Group A campaign.
Factoring in how we are progressing this season, Mokbel’s claims do seem strangely timed, but speaking to the It’s All Kicking Off podcast he is utterly confident that despite ‘turning the narrative around’ last year, the simple fact that no contract extension has yet been agreed is proof that he will be off when his current deal expires over the summer.
Granted, recent mixed results have seen some sections call for his head again, but in simple terms we are on track for a decent – if not fantastic – year again.
“That question will linger until David Moyes finally departs. I think he’s going to depart. All the information that we have indicates that he will depart at the end of this season. I think there was a plan to do that last summer, at the end of last season, for him to move on. But obviously, then winning the European trophy, the Conference League kind of spun that direction on its head a little bit because how can you sort of open the door for your head coach to leave when he’s just landed you your first trophy in decades? David Moyes deserves a lot of credit for turning that narrative around last season. But I think again, what we’ve seen this season is I’ve had an indifferent start and that narrative is kicking into gear again. And I think it will continue to do so until he goes.”
The Mail’s football editor Ian Ladyman did challenge him on the point, talking about the summer changes and the fact our season was certainly not disastrous, and Mokbel again hinted towards off pitch issues with technical director Tim Steidten, and fans will vividly remember those issues over the summer when it came to targets and signings.
From that angle it might be far more easy to understand.
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