The sacking of Slaven Bilic seemed inevitable after he led the club to a record of 5 wins 6 losses and 3 draws in the 14 games he managed the Hammers in this season across all competitions.
Bilic left the club this week with West Ham sitting in 18th position in the Premier League and 1 point away from safety after 11 games played.
The club are in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals however after their stunning 3-2 come from behind win over Tottenham in the last round.
Perhaps the worst statistic for the Hammers is that they have conceded a League high 23 goals this season already and this after signing England’s number one goalkeeper Joe Hart on a season long loan from Manchester City as part of their £43million summer transfer spending spree.
The Hammers summer transfer signings were the highest spend of any Premier League club outside the top 6 from last season.
So something had to give and since the West Ham owners had recently talked about how they liked to honour their managers’ contracts unless things become “desperate” you knew following the 4-1 home defeat to Liverpool this past weekend that a change of manager was coming.
The appointment of David Moyes was received with a great deal of scepticism online as Twitter reacted negatively to the new Hammers boss.
Hello all West Ham fans, the board have made their decision to appoint David Moyes as the new manager can I ask you to get behind him and the team to help push us up the table to safety. Together I believe we can achieve our dreams. dg pic.twitter.com/G8dwBI9f43
— David Gold (@davidgold) November 9, 2017
Following the response by the West Ham faithful, co-owner David Gold has come out on Twitter today to ask fans for their support for the Board’s decision and to stick together as the former Everton, Manchester United, Real Sociedad and Sunderland boss takes over the reins at the London Stadium.
It will be interesting to see how the new boss does but he has indicated that a stronger defensive team which is better organised and harder to beat are his first priorities while also pledging to play attacking football.
As David Moyes has said he has a “point to prove” so it will be most revealing to see how he goes about taking on the surprise package of Marco Silva’s Watford side at Vicarage Road on Sunday November 19th when the Premier League resumes following the international break.
Combining a hard to beat team with attacking football is going to be a big ask for a new boss to establish but Moyes will need to hit the ground running as he faces an extremely tough run of games against Leicester City, Everton, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal following the Watford game.
By Christmas it will be clear if West Ham are in a relegation fight for the rest of the season after the test these next 6 games pose…