|
Not a big fan of the Guardian, but Barney Ronays articles are always worth a look:
From the Theatre of Dreams to the Temple of Dildo. For David Moyes the last three years have been a curious kind of journey. Through the fag-end of an empire at Manchester United, to Real Sociedad and the sack, to Sunderland and relegation, Moyes has strode past the smoke and wreckage with a strained kind of dignity, always somehow a little starched and pained in his crisp white shirts, eyes wide, a man watching things happen to himself.
He is though still a story, still a name, still a man with a reputation to restore. For his unveiling as West Ham manager, the Great Briton Room on the third floor of the London Stadium was abuzz with a rare kind of event glamour. Cameras whirred, microphones clicked, necks craned anxiously as the clock ticked past four and outside the lights of the City glimmered through the jaffa-coloured haze of a pollution-sunset.
And finally there he was, entering from a small door to the right of the stage, immaculate in skinny black suit, maroon tie and mini-poppy. And not just smiling but beaming wildly, giddy, thrilled, and definitely not – this is vital – in any way gloomy and fatalistic. Moyes looked trim and fit. He skipped up the steps pointing and waving and greeting the press by name like an American politician and looking, in the circumstances, only a little bit anxious.
As well he might. The last few years have been tough on Moyes. Everton feels like a long time ago now. His appointment at West Ham has quickly drawn a barrage of social media dissent and radio phone-in angst from supporters already a little displaced and edgy. The first question here was stark and to the point. Did he think this was a good appointment?
“I think it’s good for us both. Well, it’s good for me,” he said, before slipping weirdly into the third person “And I do think it’s good for West Ham. They’ve got a good manager.”
There was a little awkwardness as Moyes pretended to be totally fine with the length of his contract, which only runs until the end of the season. It is certainly a strange piece of early sabotage by West Ham’s owners, who could quite easily have backed Moyes with the full two years plus some decisive break clauses .
David Moyes has ‘point to prove’ after being appointed West Ham manager:
“Managers now aren’t having long-term contracts,” he insisted breezily, like a newly divorced dad explaining how much fun it’s going to be moving out of the family semi and living in a flat above a kebab shop.
There was plenty of praise for West Ham’s stadium, albeit the old one they no longer occupy, which was “one of the most fearsome places to come”. And by now Moyes had at least stopped smiling and gone back to the familiar paint-stripping stare, the best part of him, the part that reminds you of his sense of purpose at Everton: Moyes the team-builder and disciplinarian, before he had to start doing all this apologising about things.
On that front there was a slightly alarming attempt to answer a question about the remarks he made at Sunderland last March to the BBC journalist Vicki Sparks about “getting a slap”. Had Moyes discussed this with Karren Brady, who was very critical of him at the time? “No we didn’t discuss it at all.” Er. What? Really? Not at all?
It was the only really jarring moment in an otherwise cussedly upbeat half hour, the only glimpse of the peculiar vagueness that has dogged this club. Surely, at the very least, Moyes should have been briefed to answer this question a bit better.
But then hanging over all of this is the wider question of where exactly this strangely displaced, strangely unhappy modern behemoth is heading right now. Unveiling David Moyes on a six-month contract on a gloomy November Wednesday afternoon: this wasn’t in the brochure when the junking of Upton Park, the idea of a leap up into the elite club stratosphere, was being energetically floated. But then, football rarely does what its told on any level.
And Moyes does at least fit into the longer history of West Ham managers, the sense this is a job for serious, even rather sorrowful men. From Syd King, who suffered and died in the job, through the obsessive inspiration of Ron Greenwood and the quiet class of John Lyall, West Ham has been a place for era-builders, men with an eye on some kind of legacy, as Moyes always seemed to be in the best times.
If he has something a little pinched about him these days then this is also unsurprising for a manager who seemed to become obsolete, dinosaur-ish almost overnight. Moyes will surely keep West Ham up just by getting the players to run a bit more and defend a bit better. “Sometimes you have to repair things and maybe I’ve got a bit to repair,” he said at one point.
West Ham still give the impression of having left some vital part of the club’s essence up the road in the London clay of a new-build housing site. In Moyes they might just have found somebody else looking for a redemption story. It would be an unexpectedly happy ending if he could find a home here, at a place still trying to feel like one.
|
