BEYOND THE CLUTCHES OF THE PAYWALL
West Ham 3 Luton Town 1
The nature of West Ham’s drubbing last weekend at Stamford Bridge leads David Sullivan to reveal the news and worst ever kept West Ham secret prematurely: at the end of the season, no one will be interested in buying any of the players West Ham are desperate to offload, including Lucas Paquetá. Oh, and David Moyes’ contract is not being renewed.
This is the day that chronicles the end of something. Or is it the beginning of something? Or the continuation of a beautiful story? Only time will tell, and certainly by the end of 2024 we will know what West Ham United team we must settle for or fight to change.
Since John Lyall, only Harry Redknapp has been manager of West Ham for a period longer than David Moyes. This makes Moyes a modern 21st century managerial legend, the title conferred on him by fans upon the winning of the Europa Conference League in June 2023 in his third full season. Another 21st century managerial legend, Leicester City’s Claudio Ranieri, also left his club the year following his remarkable title winning season of 2015-16. Once fans acquire a taste for success from an unexpected achievement, time on the manager’s stay begins to tick very loudly. Moyes will not now manage a West Ham side aspiring for European football. The idea of such a side, even with a stadium that can hold 63,000 people, looked a little far-fetched in late 2019, with Hammers facing relegation. By May 2024 there is disappointment that Europe is out of reach, at least for the forthcoming season. Be careful what you fish for.
Rob Edwards is the kind of manager every fan reveres. Focused, intelligent, in touch with his emotions, not given to hysteria. But facing relegation if Luton don’t win today. Still, he looks calm. He built his team with £20m pounds. That’s Lucas Paquetá’s left arm minus the tattoos. Still, he looks calm.
And we’re away for David Moyes’ last game in charge at London Stadium. This team he built still look as capable of beating anyone as they are of conceding three goals in ten minutes. Look at them. Antonio, a man who grew from a decent wing back and striker into one of the best hold up play and powerful finishers. Always in the position to miss chances, but there to score a few too. Then Jarrod Bowen. A revelation, signing for West Ham in January 2020, Moyes’ moment of genius, even then costing two million pounds more than this Luton side. Now he is Hammer of the Year with 20 goals in over 200 appearances. Scorer of the winner in Prague less than a year ago.
And Mohammed Kudus. A steal from Ajax’s fire sale, still blossoming in London in this team, and scorer of the goal of the season in the 5-0 win v SC Freiburg. Who most embodies what Moyes has been all about? Yes, August 2021, the man signed to step into Mark Noble’s size tens, Kurt Zouma. The cat kicker. The joker. A man who everyone says doesn’t captain the side properly. Doesn’t encourage other players in the side. But hang on. Didn’t he follow in the footsteps of Billy Bonds and Bobby Moore, captaining the side to a major European trophy? Their first in nearly half a century? Yes, that one. The new guy may replace him with a signing of his own, someone who can be part of the new narrative. But Zouma, that’s David Moyes, that is.
And the midfield signing who ekes Moyes? Of course, the loanee from Slavia Prague in January 2020, signing permanently six months later after helping us avoid relegation, Tomas Souček. He has been there for the whole ride, costing just £14m, plus the £5m loan fee. That’s less than this Luton side, but no one speaks Moyes more than this man. Tenacious, good in the air, quick-footed, as good off the ball as he is on it, and returning to his home country three years after making the move permanent to carry off that trophy. The spinning top goal celebration… The potato salad! Then his Slavia Prague sidekick, Vladimir Coufal, signing for less than £5.5m just three months after Souček tied the football knot. Bargain doesn’t cut it. This was an absolute gift, possibly the final piece of the jigsaw. A goal-maker and a tackler, pugnacious, determined, tough as old boots. A little bit like… well, many have said it. I don’t like to say the words but we all know who I’m talking about. And this man, well he’s run through brick walls for West Ham, too, in his time here.
Of course, without Paquetá or Emerson, there is no trophy. But you rarely see them over with the away fans after we’ve lost. And that’s where it counts. And they are Steidten men, both signed in August 2022. Emerson, an Italian who played for Santos as a boy, finally preferring the niche of Rome to the streets of São Paolo. But a last minute addition to that final side who played his heart out that night. And that pass from Paquetá. It can’t be ignored. But neither screams ‘Moyes’ to me.
Areola? He’s finally stolen the number one shirt from Fabianski. And how do we feel about that? Well, it was Moyes’ choice, signing him permanently from PSG after a season on loan, but for me there’s barely a fag paper between them on paper. Areola has always been the showman, and his save at Lyon after twenty minutes was voted the save of the 2022 Europa League tournament. When West Ham ran out 3-0 winners on the night, possibly our best European away performance under Moyes, I never lost sight of how important that early saves proved to be. Areola was also between the sticks for what was probably Moyes’ most memorable PL away victory, at the Emirates, in December 2023. Goalkeepers are always a key part of any team’s success. Ask Manuel Pellegrini and Roberto, the Spanish goalkeeper he signed in June 2019. You remember. Six months before David Moyes returned to West Ham to clear up the mess.
Then there were the senior players who continued to thrive under Moyes: Cresswell and Ogbonna to name but two, and two who will follow the boss out of the door next week. But the central defender who confounded the critics and Watford and West Brom, who’d only ever seen him as a squad player. I am talking, of course, about Ballon D’Orson, Craig Dawson to you and me, signed on loan – as a squad player – in October 2020. He stepped in to provide cover and became one of the finest centre backs we have ever had, also scoring key goals at key times. Remember the goal at Lyon? Yeah, me too. West Ham signed him permanently at the end of the season. He left nearly three years later, his legendary status assured. He has since become a legend at Wolverhampton Wanderers. That’s four teams all beginning with the letter ‘W’. Weird. Craig, as George Michael so beautifully put it, you have been loved.
I started my own blog ‘Our Days Are Few’ from my book of the same name about a life supporting West Ham, enthused by the form under Moyes, as well as the abundance of time The Covid offered for writing it all up. And the chance to still be at all of the games, behind the PA mike, and to park in front of the Stadium Store before heading down the steps to my new Covid seat in the disabled seat section above the dugout. You’re reading the fourth season of that.
West Ham Clips is one of the non-playing elements of the Moyes’ period that no one should forget. The computer voice with no name who chronicled no crowd audio games with dramatic drums, cat yelps and other sound effects grafted onto the backdrop of the action. He was aided in his enterprise by Fillipo the Mediterranean summariser, Rita Paulton, the VAR expert, Brenda from Bristol and, of course Jesus, always around to put his ecclesiastical stamp on the key points in each game. Managed by the Tartan Diego, Clips’ Hammers team simultaneously spent all of their playing time trying to accumulate the necessary 40 points for Premier League survival as well as chasing the treble, or the quadruple, or some European trophy, until they weren’t. I was fascinated to see Declan Rice and the other players watching the latest Clips commentaries on their phones before home matches. It was an absolutely crazy time.
Then there are the European heroes who left the Moyes set-up: Fornals, Benrahma, Kehrer, Scamacca and Haller, all seemingly doing better since their departures. For me, Fornals was the best of them, his signature salute at the corner flag after scoring, he was of course a Pellegrini signing, and it was only right that he should rejoin the Chilean at Real Betis. I also liked Thilo Kehrer, and he’d be right with hindsight to be disappointed that he was rarely played in his correct position. Should any of them have been kept on? Hard to say. Some of the loanees still might return if Julen Lopetegui feels he has a place for them. Moyes always liked a small squad, something which was probably incompatible with a 50 game season.
How many of those Moyes’ players that are left will be let go? How many will not feature in the future plans of Lopetegui? We will soon see. It has to be accepted that David Moyes was the first West Ham UnIted manager who made the London Stadium a place that fans looked forward to visiting. A place where for the first time a 63,000 crowd sounded like it had on Super Saturday at the 2012 Olympics. Will Lopetegui manage to level up the decibels? Watch this space.
For now it’s the last home match of 2023-24, and Luton Town are providing the opposition. And they set about West Ham as promptly and confidently as a hatful of other teams have done in 2024, the fascinatingly named Albert Sambi Lokonga heading home Alfie Doughty’s teasing cross from the left after just six minutes. And that was the only goal in the first half, though Luton could well have got more. Were West Ham already on the beach, or was there something more sinister at play? (ie. Luton Town being the better side?)
Moyesie has obviously said something at half time, because the kids come out of the traps at breakneck speed. Or Luton make it look like that. And it isn’t long before they are level, Ward-Prowse firing home into the bottom corner after a goalmouth pressure melee. It’s always great to see him zoom off to the corner flag for his trademark ‘gold swing’ celebration, then remember that this is Southampton territory and revert to the first thing he can think of. That’s why we have got to calling his goal celebrations the ‘schizophrenic salute.’
Another celebration worthy of mention (I’ve already mentioned it once in this report) is Souček’s spinning top, which he is doing just eleven minutes later after a left foot volley from the edge of the area flies past namesake Thomas Kaminski into the corner of the net. And, yes, another eleven minutes later, supersub George Earthy, who has only been on the pitch for 55 seconds, slots home a punctuation to another Kudus mazy run and it’s 3-1 and relative safety. The star of last season’s FA Youth Cup win over Arsenal at the Emirates has now entered the domain of West Ham goalscorers. It is great to see his two greatest fans, Lucas Paquetá and (after the game) Nayef Aguerd make a total fuss over him. Edson Álvarez has already put him in hospital by accident, so he seems to be getting to know our international stars very quickly.
Poor Luton Town are more or less down as they are still eleven goals behind the goal difference of Nottingham Forest, one place above them, with one game to go.
The last home match of the season celebrations at the end salute the Moyesiah in a sporting send off from the home supporters, and most of the fans around the ground begin to debate just who they might be seeing for the last time at London Stadium, apart from the gaffer.
So how does that rate, historically, as a season in West Ham’s history? Another European adventure, with no shame at being eliminated by the form team in Europe. One of the few teams to have won at the Emirates, the breaking of the Brighton and the Brentford PL holds over the club, and Jarrod Bowen at 20 goals, equalling Di Canio’s 16 PL strikes from way back then. Another top scoring achievement and this season’s Hammer of the Year.
23 Alphonse Areola, 33 Emerson, 4 Kurt Zouma (captain), 5 Vladimir Coufal, 21 Angelo Ogbonna,, 10 Lucas Paquetá, 7 James Ward-Prowse, 28 Tomas Souček, 9 Michail Antonio, 14 Mohammed Kudus, 20 Jarrod Bowen
Substitutes: 3 Aaron Cresswell, 18 Danny Ings, 40 George Earthy
Goalscorers: James Ward-Prowse, Tomas Souček, George Earthy
