When David Moyes was appointed manager of West Ham United, Hammers fans weren’t just worried about the man who appeared to have become toxic after three high-profile failures in four years.
The Scottish manager’s recent past was only half the story – the main concern was whether or not Moyes’ approach to the game was still relevant in the modern world.
This was a man who had become painted as something of a caricature for his teams’ performances on the pitch and not just their results: at Manchester United, an astounding 81 crosses failed to bring victory over Fulham, whilst he was ridiculed at Sunderland for dropping some of his best midfielders in order to bring some ‘Britishness’ to the midfield.
His first few games in charge in East London were hardly a huge break from the status quo, either. Improvements may have been found in the 1-1 draw with Leicester, for example, but there still seemed to be lasting frailties from a start of the season which saw Slaven Bilic lose his job.
And yet, if West Ham’s defensive organisation was the problem at the start of the season, Moyes seems to have been able to solve it over the last two weeks.
Coming up against Manchester City at the Etihad may have focused minds. The Hammers were traveling to a team who had been scoring for fun, even if their previous two games against Huddersfield and Southampton had been won only with late strikes, and you didn’t have to look far to find odds on Moyes’ side to get anything out of the game at a higher price than City racking up a cricket score.
It didn’t pan out that way, even despite some big injury problems for West Ham, and the credit they got for a well-organised defensive display was solidified the next game when they beat Chelsea 1-0. It was the second game in a run of three tough-looking fixtures, the next coming on Wednesday night when the Hammers host Arsenal at the London stadium. Six points from that run of games would look mightily impressive given where they started the series.
The last two games have seen a vast improvement from Moyes’ side, and perhaps the scale of the task facing them, with City, Chelsea and Arsenal on the horizon, was enough to bring the necessary concentration into the defence. But the improvement in organisation has been marked. And that’s been down to Moyes.
Instead of just soaking up the pressure with an assured defensive display, the Hammers have actually seemed to know what they wanted to do with the ball when they finally did get it and were able to break. Against Manchester City, they scored the first goal and looked dangerous on the break right up until the last minute, when Diafra Sakho should really have equalised to earn a point. Against Chelsea, there were chances, too.
Perhaps the most encouraging part of both of those games hasn’t been the fact that the Hammers have defended well but that they actually managed to score against two of the league’s best defences so far this season. It’s one thing to set up defensively, but Moyes has been able to get his side to pose an attacking threat, too. And that’s allowed his defence to take a breather in hard matches, as well as posing the other team an extra question to answer, making them a less potent threat.
But in this Hammers side, there are some undoubtedly good attacking players. With Michail Antonio, Marko Arnautovic and Manuel Lanzini starting, as well as Andre Ayew coming off the bench, West Ham had four players with the quality to hurt any Premier League side on the pitch on Saturday. Add to that the options that Andy Carroll and Javier Hernandez will bring to the side when they’re back in the team.
With so many good attacking options, all it takes is a defensive unit that’s strong and organised to allow those players to thrive at the other end.
This season, West Ham have scored in seven games in which they’ve either lost or drawn. But in order to pick up the points to take them to safety before the bottom of the table really becomes a relegation battle, they’ll need to tighten up at the back. The last two games shows that Moyes has been able to have some sort of impact on that whilst still being able to get his team to attack.
When the run of big games ends and the Hammers go back to the daily grind of the Premier League, the concentration levels may drop, and that could send them crashing back to Earth. But if they can keep it up, it looks like Moyes has played a tactical blinder with the squad he’s got.
