As the season closes, despite the “Moyes is in it for the long term” smokescreen that keeps getting played on various media outlets, it seems that the Scotsman’s time at West Ham is coming to a sombre end as he still tries to keep the Hammers in the Premier League by the slightest of margins.
If and when we stay up, I think Moyes will be given the boot and a new manager will be installed. But who will it be?
We’ve been linked with thirteen. Yes, thirteen managers who I feel are not the right men to build a legacy at the club.
Let’s face it, the names we have been linked with, such as Eddie Howe, Rafa Benítez, Sean Dyche and Slavisa Jokanovic, probably won’t leave their current clubs thi summer.
Howe is quite happy having a far greater say in a fantastic and youthful Bournemouth side who are a joy to watch; Benitez will have a project at Newcastle when they get new owners in place, Dyche can carry on with his great work at Burnley as they push on with Europa League qualification and Jokanovic can build on his success at Fulham as they prepare for a return to the Premier League.
All these managers have no real reason to leave their clubs for us.
Brendan Rodgers, Manuel Pellegrini and Arsene Wenger are all too big a name for us and are destined for greater jobs in Europe.
So that leaves Marco Silva, who hasn’t stayed at a club for longer than half a season and David Wagner, who plays negative football and is also struggling for survival in the Premier League. Not ideal options for West Ham, then, and Moyes does seem the viable option at the moment. Sigh.
What if West Ham did go ambitious and get a proven manager who wins things?
We’ve seen managers with no Premier League experience come over to the country and build very good careers for themselves whilst adapting and developing with the league. Benitez, Mancini, Pellegrini, Pottechino Guardiola, Flores, Klopp and even Mourinho all come over to this island to showcase their tactical knowledge with great effect.
Obviously some of those names were given a fantastic budgets to work with but they were still given that opportunity. West Ham should make a serious move to bring in a manager from the Portuguese league and give him a perfect platform to build a great team. That man is current Benfica head coach, Rui Vitoria.
After a rocky start, Rui Victoria has just secured his second league title for the Lisbon based side and was given limited resources, despite the club selling high profile names like Renato Sanches to Bayern Munich, Victor Lindelof to Manchester United, Ederson to Manchester City and Nelson Semedo to Barcelona.
Vitoria is known for his 4-2-2-2 formation but has adapted this into a 4-1-4-1 and 4-3-3 formation to get much needed results against tougher opposition and to secure silverware.
The 48-year-old’s tactics is a build-up of compressive triangular passing and high team pressing by having interior midfielders to obtain the ball from the centre and switch the play out wide, allowing the wingers to link up with the full-backs.
This tactic gives support from deep to the striker by high tempo crossing. The defensive contribution from the full-backs exposes the opposition so they can indulge in generating chances for the lone striker.
Without the ball, a deep holding midfielder capitalises on the lost space in the middle of the park and there has been an average of seven interceptions per game, which recovers the ball and allow for effective counter attacks that lead to plenty of goal scoring opportunities.
