By Hughie Southon
David Moyes has revealed that it was very much touch and go whether Said Benrahma would make the game against Palace yesterday (Sun).
And he has defended his decision to take him off despite the player scoring a fine goal which will almost certainly become a goal of the month qualifier.
The manager also rose to those who were critical of the decision to bring on Manu Lanzini as his replacement.
It’s probably the first time Moyes has bitten against what he called “experts” and suggests perhaps that things are starting to get to him as some fans become disenchanted with a less than average season.
The sad reality is that the Hammers have won just four Premier League wins this season whilst losing eight and that must see the manager coming under a certain amount of pressure.
And fans are entitled to make their feelings heard without being dismissed sarcastically as “experts” by the manager of the club.
He said per London Evening Standard: “You wouldn’t see it, Said was badly strapped up on his knee and was touch and go for the game. It was about 60 minutes and I didn’t think he was moving as free as what he could do. Overall, we made the choice and I actually thought at that period we got slightly better.
“I thought he scored a good goal, I don’t know if he had much of an impact after. There’s a lot of people, a lot of experts out there isn’t there? You have to make the decisions that you think gets you the best chance.
“I felt we probably improved in the last 20 minutes of the game with the ball and gave ourselves one or two opportunities.”
The advent of social media in all its forms does place managers and players under instant and constant scrutiny. A lot of it is downright abusive(not this site mostly). I can understand David Moyes getting exasperated but ge has started to explain what on the surface seems strange decisions to us lot watching on. Southampton have just sacked their manager so that’s the 5th one to go after 14 games. A 25% failure rate with just over a third of season gone! Perhaps we need to think a bit re Moyes. Arsenal kept faith with Arteta after two poor seasons by their standards.
What chances did we make?
That last sentence fails to point out that Moyes is now in his third season with us
Moyes explanation of why he took Benrahma off seems perfectly valid to me and he’s right there are a lot of experts out there who think they could do a better job of managing West Ham but they are not qualified to manage a pub team. They are not in training every day from dawn til dusk like Moyes is. They don’t see Benrahma missing training or walking around with his knee heavily strapped being touch and go for whether he plays.
Moyes is the architect of all the frustration within the fan base, so rather than calling out the fans he should sort out the problems he’s created on the pitch.
The ‘experts’ snide is not necessary Mr Moyes, just do your job. Most of us fans pay thousands in travel and tickets to support our club and have done for decades, and we can have opinions on our concerns and dislikes. We are told that Moyes had the full say on transfers, so he must integrate and utilise resources. Just do it and you will find support not dissent. As it stands, it sounds like you think it’s the fault of certain players and the fans and bad luck – really?