By most measures, David Moyes has done an impressive job at West Ham United but the underlying numbers might explain why some supporters become so dissatisfied so quickly once the results begin to turn, writes Adam Bate in The Debrief
Wednesday 14 February 2024 13:11, UK
West Ham's 6-0 defeat to Arsenal sparked an outpouring of frustration that had been building towards David Moyes for some time. Maybe it had always been there, in truth. But for some supporters, this felt like the end. Enough was enough.
Any six-goal thrashing would heighten the emotions. But the wider discontent towards a manager who ended the club's 58-year wait for a European trophy in May is confusing for many on the outside. West Ham are eighth in the Premier League table, after all.
"Let us be fair," said Moyes in the wake of the defeat. "Over the last three years it has been the best time West Ham have ever had. Sixth and seventh in the league, semi-final of the Europa League, a final of a European cup competition and I still think this club has grown."
He has a point and there have been plenty willing to make it for him. Take a step back and West Ham are no crisis club. The silverware that was craved has been delivered and they remain above supposedly more upwardly-mobile clubs in the Premier League table.
But while it is easy to tell West Ham supporters to be careful what they wish for, it is surely more interesting to ask why it is that they wish for it. What is it about the football, what is it about Moyes, that is not generating the hope or excitement of elsewhere?
The style question has dogged Moyes. Words like cautious and negative have become staples of phone-ins and forums. Not expansive enough. Not ambitious enough. But what does this mean?
A look at the underlying numbers provides some insight. There are statistics that suggest West Ham do things differently to other teams - and very differently to other teams with their budget and aspirations. Moyes' team do not press as much as the rest.
Opta defines a pressed sequence as a passage of play starting in the opposition's defensive third where that team makes three or fewer passes and the sequence ends in their own half. West Ham have the fewest in the Premier League. Liverpool have the most.
The PPDA numbers tell a similar story. These calculate the number of opposition passes allowed per defensive action, essentially measuring how passive a team is when out of possession. Only Nottingham Forest allow more. Liverpool allow the fewest.
The result is that West Ham rarely turn the ball over high up the pitch. Those moments that can be such a source of excitement, winning possession around the opposition box, are rare under Moyes. Only bottom club Sheffield United have fewer high turnovers.
The final measure worth mentioning, another that illustrates how West Ham play on the back foot, is the one that shows how much progress upfield that the opposition make against each Premier League team per sequences of play. West Ham are top again.
This particular metric has Roberto De Zerbi's Brighton at the opposite end of the scale and that contrast strikes at the heart of the style question. The teams are separated by only a point - in West Ham's favour - and have similar ambitions, domestic and European.
But there is a reason why they are perceived so differently and it is wrong to attempt to explain that away as a mere desire for the exotic. It is rooted in this issue of style.
Clearly, there are times when it works for West Ham. Notably, Moyes took his team to Brighton and won in August, needing only 22 per cent of possession to beat De Zerbi's side. No team this season has had so little of the ball and won a Premier League game.
In fact, it is one of seven matches that have been won by teams with fewer than 26 per cent of the ball in the Premier League so far this season. West Ham are responsible for four of them. They are the masters of the smash and grab, experts at winning without the ball.
It is unique across Europe's five major leagues to have success playing this way. Only six of the 96 teams have had less possession than West Ham. All six rank 15th or lower in their respective tables. The correlation between possession and position is real.
That becomes a real problem for Moyes when his team goes on a run of seven games without a win in all competitions. If teams play in a way that is similar to successful teams, supporters can still see the way forward. It can sustain them through a slump.
When West Ham endure a difficult period, as all but the very best do, this helps to explain why there is less sympathy.
Put simply, West Ham play like a bad team. And when they lose games the way that they lose them, they are a bad team. That can become really awkward for Moyes when that team includes players of the ability of Jarrod Bowen, Mohammed Kudus and the rest.
"We want to be a better football team, we are trying to become a better football team," he said recently. "But maybe at the moment we have to get back to being a winning team, where wins do not really matter what they look like as long as we get the results."
But Moyes was appointed to this job in December 2019. Putting talk of an evolution in playing style on the backburner is a tricky argument to expect to land with supporters when a manager is more than four years into his second spell in charge.
If not now, when?
Attendances have almost doubled since the stadium move and that changes the dynamic too. For an additional 30,000 supporters, the joy of victory is more visceral, the pain of defeat more pronounced. It is easier to put down a phone or turn off a television than trudge back through Stratford, alone in thought or together in misery.
That undoubtedly brings extra pressure.
But these supporters are not deluded. They understand that nights like the one they enjoyed in Prague are not normal for West Ham. They have lived through the lean years. There is a gratitude for the good times under Moyes and a realisation that change brings risk.
Even so, wanting it to look different to this is understandable.
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