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Comments
And secondly, I was pro-Manning. I'd watched a few QPR games and he looked decent. I felt that he could do a job as a Masuaku understudy as he was more a winger than a full-back, but in a 3-5-2 that's what we needed. As it was, when Masuaku was ruled out, we had to abandon the formation and revert to four at the back.
And whilst I agree that it's good to have a manager that is thinking about the long-term, I don't think it should necessarily come at the cost of the short-term. We have a genuine chance of making Europe this season, which was one of the board's aim when they moved stadiums, and yet the club don't seem too bothered if we don't take it. That doesn't scream 'ambition' to me.
I won’t be remotely contented with a middle table finish. Has to be European finish of sorts. Otherwise the season is a C minus.
The fact that we were flirting with relegation last season is not overly relevant in my opinion.
I’m probably totally in the minority with this 😂
IronHerb, he hasn’t got a new striker in which a few on here are flagging up as remiss. He appears not to be appeasing the clamour for reinforcements? Lets see where we finish, I hope we don’t miss yet another good opportunity.
Finding out that the 'right person' isn't available in the summer wouldn't make your non-quite-good-enough 2nd striker any better.
Panic buying the wrong player in desperation is a fail
Both are fails, albeit different
No-one comes out of this with any modicum of credit right now, not Moyes, not Sully
However if we maintain our performance levels, keep our key starters fit and playing hopefully it will be forgotten come the summer.
Equally, Haller was not contributing, during cash and devaluing day by day, so whilst I would have hoped we would have a replacement lined up, there was little value in hanging on to him.
Hopefully Yarmo and Odebeku step up, and are given the chance to, when needed.
They didn't splurge money on squad fillers and remained within their means all the time. Moyes only signed players who he felt certain could a) improve the team and b) work as hard off the ball as he demands.
I think the argument that we should have filled out the squad this season to try and qualify for Europe is short-sighted. We've had years, decades probably, of signing players who don't work out and then we can't shift them, shift them for a loss and/or end up burned and worse off because of their extortionate wages.
I'd rather look long-term, and I think Moyes is looking long-term. He doesn't want to be a coach, he wants to manage the club from top to bottom the way he did at Everton, and the way Fergie did at Man U and Wenger did at Arsenal.
So I'm not too worried about us not qualifying for Europe this season, because I believe we are aiming for longer-term stability at the right end of the table.
Look at Moyes' Premier League finishes while at Everton: 7th, 17th, 4th, 11th, 6th, 5th, 5th, 8th, 7th, 7th, 6th.
I'll take a shot at that kind of consistency any day of the week.
We are short of back-up but I'd rather we wait for the right players, who will be around for a while and fit the mould, rather than shots in the dark or hopeful punts. Which, let's face it, we get horrendously wrong almost all the time.
Purchased Dawson, I believe from the reports he was available for £2-3 million, beer money for our owners, and on performances so far I guess this will be done, that would have freed up space for an on loan Striker.
This is my only gripe, happy we not wasting money, but to be left with Antonio on his own, plus a few possible makeshift options upfront is poor....All IMO of course.
May as well have had a 3 year old make the choices - we’d have probably had more joy just based purely on the law of averages.
I have more hope for Odubeko, but I'm not convinced he'll get much chance to play. I think it's Antonio > Yarmolenko > False 9 > Odubeko.
But I guess we'll see over the next few months.
I do like that Moyes wants to do more, but I'm not convinced he'll be given the scope to do it.
A goal or two could easily make the difference of a place or two in the final table and so such a deal might well be self financing through increased prize money, and could help us attract better players in the summer when we once again go into the transfer market.
Don't forget, there's no guarantee that the players Moyes wants will be any more willing to come in the summer than now, or will be any more "value for money" for Sully, but I would argue they'll view us as a much more attractive proposition if we finish 6th or 7th, than if it's 10th or 12th.
I genuinely believe Rice will go in the summer unless we can convince him we're serious about challenging for Europe and Cups; we all know he's a large cut above the team as a whole and, imo, our only chance of keeping him is to show genuine ambition to move the club forward. This window was a chance to try to make a step in that direction, to try to capitalise on the very good start to the season, but having to play the remainder of the season reliant on Antonio's hamstrings holding up is a huge gamble imo.
Pessimistic maybe, but I see us dropping down to 9th or 10th, selling Rice, and then very little, if anything, of the £30m that Moyes hasn't spent this window (or any other monies that would usually constitute the summer transfer kitty) being added to the Rice fee that will be made available to strengthen the squad.
Not sure who has made the decisions here, I’m not sure I’ll ever fully trust Sullivan and I think Moyes would always put on a brave face so it doesn’t look like he’s being messed around with and to avoid looking like he is undermining management. But I can also see how he might’ve held off on a new striker. I hope he sees something in Odubeko because we do need cover
He doesn’t put players on the pitch that he doesn’t trust. So I can only assume that any of the short-term fixes available (King, Maja) just didn’t fit the bill.
At the moment Moyes has my trust, so if we didn’t get these players then I’m inclined to think he simply didn’t think they’d add anything. He went for Lingard instead of King because he will use him and trust him, IMO.
Also, I wonder if the amounts will be reduced next year, or if the prize money is set well in advance?
And for me it always comes back to same thing; if they can't afford to take us to the 'next level', which in their own words was competing in European competitions, then they should never have used that as a reason to leave UP.
https://www.hammers.news/transfer-news/10-free-agent-strikers-david-moyes-could-sign-for-west-ham/
https://www.kumb.com/article.php?id=43946
Apologies if people have already seen these but believe they are relevant to this thread.