The recently appointed Hammers boss won’t have to play Manchester City every week, but he will have to start somewhereDecember was the month that found Manchester City out last year and, though history does not look like repeating itself with Pep Guardiola’s side on the verge of equalling a Premier League record for consecutive wins within a season, the runaway league leaders need to be wary of a seven-game month that includes a derby.Twelve months ago it was Chelsea, on their own record-equalling 13 match winning run, who came to the Etihad and inflicted the first home defeat of the season with a 3-1 win. City were still shell-shocked a week later when they turned up at Leicester in some...
The appointments of Allardyce, Pardew, Moyes et al have caught flak but foreign managers from Pep Guardiola to Marco Silva are shining and likewise Englishmen such as Sean Dyche and Eddie HoweIt is a little more than a month since Sam Allardyce appeared alongside Richard Keys and Andy Gray in their TV studio in Doha and moaned, without a hint of irony, about foreigners taking all the plum jobs. Well, more or less. What Allardyce claimed exactly was British managers are viewed as “second class” in their own country and have “nowhere to go” because the Premier League is a “foreign league in England”.Nonsense then and even more so in a week when Allardyce took charge at Everton and Alan...
Back-to-basics approach by new manager may have found traces of West Ham’s missing spark in the 1-1 draw with Leicester CityWell, there’s something new. With 55 minutes gone and West Ham’s players showing vim and fight on the pitch the home crowd at the London stadium could be seen up on its feet, waving its arms and sending a sustained chorus of “David Moyes’ claret and blue army” rolling around this vast, chilly, cantilevered bowl.As moments of ignition go, a messy 1-1 home draw against a meandering Leicester City is hardly a thunderclap. But whatever happens from here in the temp-to-perm mini-reign of Moyes as West Ham manager, he will always have Leicester, Friday night and the feeling of a...
David Moyes to West Ham is merely the latest example of a roundhead appointment prevailing over more innovative, cavalier thinkingPep Guardiola, José Mourinho, Mauricio Pochettino, Antonio Conte and Jürgen Klopp – the managers of Premier League clubs who occupy the top five places in the table. All are world renowned for their differing but successful coaching styles and have excelled in their profession. Each is contrasting in terms of personality, image and footballing philosophy but there is a common denominator, which is they were exposed to top-tier management while in their 30s.They achieved it differently but compared with managers in England they were coaching top-level clubs relatively young and able to apply their ideas and engage with players closely, partly...
The man appointed to replace Slaven Bilic was deemed dated by his players when on Wearside, where he became shrouded in a cloak of negativityFootball club executives like to talk up the amount of “due diligence” they routinely undertake before hiring anyone but such boasts sometimes end up ringing hollow.Anyone who watched Sunderland regularly last season can be forgiven for wondering precisely how much homework West Ham United did before appointing David Moyes to replace Slaven Bilic. Related: West Ham United appoint David Moyes as new manager 6 Related: West Ham pay a high price for keeping faith in Slaven Bilic too long Continue reading...