How many times do West Ham fans have to hear “be careful what you wish for” from football pundits?
Well, on last night’s Match of the Day 2, it was Alan Shearer’s turn to churn out the well-worn cliché. Speaking after the highlights of West Ham’s 2-0 defeat to Fulham, the former England striker was asked about some Hammers fans’ disgruntlement with manager David Moyes.
Shearer said, “West Ham are 8th in the Premier League and two points off 6th. I think it’s a case of be careful what you wish for.”
And that was it, the pearls of wisdom from somebody who clearly knows very little about West Ham fans’ gripes. It was a complete reframing of many fans’ complaints, which have very little to do with league position.
Shearer was at it again as he told Hammers fans “Be careful what you wish for”.
There was no nuanced analysis, no talk of the £450 million spent by David Moyes, no mention that we have lost 7-0 on aggregate to Fulham this season and are dropping like a stone. Certainly, nobody on the MOTD2 panel discussed that West Ham have the joint-worst defence outside the bottom three, nor the fact that once again Moyes’ reaction to going a goal behind was defensive substitutions.
Lazy punditry from a man and a production team who clearly hadn’t researched the real reasons behind many fans’ frustrations with the manager.
Spot on GONZO
They look at league tables and not at performances . So many dropped points from games where we should/ could have won … So many awful substitutions and a squad on its knees with no back up following disasterous transfer window farces .
Moyes should have gone last year …. He MUST go now if we are to move forward .
COYI
Exactly right mate
From the man who relegated the geordies and more pointedly has probably never paid upwards of 80 quid to watch ANY match for years. Keep your snout out of our business bonehead.
I don’t know if i disagree with Shearer or not. For the last couple of years, at least, i’ve been frustrated at the dross served up by Moyes’ tactics whilst also wondering why the squad is so threadbare having spent so much money; it smacks of terrible management across the board, especially the need for a decent striker who can play Moyes’ system. HOWEVER… i’ve never experienced us playing in Europe, let alone win anything in Europe in my lifetime and you only get that chance via a high league position or winning a cup. Whether or not watching every game is akin to watching paint take longer to dry than it says it should do on the tin, our final league positions, last season aside (although i definitely would take that again for a cup win of any kind), have been brilliant, and very unexpected, under Moyes. I’m not sure, with Paqueta almost certain to go in the summer and a bunch of other players likely to leave, if next season has quite the same potential as this or the last couple. With financial fair play, how much quality are we going to be able to replace those players with? Add to that a potential new manager taking a while to find his feet, as Iraola did at Bournemouth, for example or the gamble that any new manager brings (and let’s be honest, are there a huge amount out there that could take us further, in league position terms, than Moyes generally has?) and i don’t wonder if the pundits backing Moyes don’t have a point.
It’s much easier in life to complain about what you haven’t got than to be grateful for what you have and i just wonder whether another season or two of pragmatism might just put us, as a club, in a better place than a gamble. I don’t have an answer because i can see both sides of the argument but i do feel like i might be leaning towards pragmatism at this stage. I guess it won’t be long until we find out.
Well put it this way if he does stay the season renewal tickets will be down 30 odd % …….I certainly won’t….and probably just keep eye on the score each game rather tgsn let it bother me …I’m grateful to moyes for what he has done …but it’s plain to see we will just tread water if he stays …and good players won’t come ..just look what he’s done to some players who then have gone on to show full potential at other clubs …scamacca being one..and the players we have missed out on because of his dithering..watkins and toney for 2 ….the man’s stubbornness is a big problem
100% gonzo …this man can take us no further…..the season is over…I can’t even watch us for the min…and I can’t even listen to moyes with his deluded comments and excuses…..65 thousand a week we get at the stadium….the club should be fighting for champions league…no quality player like paq will stay until the club is run properly….7_ 0 on aggregate against Fulham just says it all
Watching us at the moment means being on tenterhooks waiting for the next mistake or bad pass. We do have moments when the highly skilled players do something that makes you sit up and say “That’s more like it.” It is the latter reason I watch football. For me, it is more than winning, It is about the entertainment. I started as a West Ham fan in the days of Martin Peters, Geoff Hurst, and the incomparable Bobby Moore. We lost as many games as we won, but the way they played meant that we all turned up expecting something we would not see anywhere else – great players doing what they do best. Mpyes system seems designed to destroy or minimize these moments.