Blind Hammer looks at avoiding relegation and argues against protest.
Tomorrow night’s game against Leicester will be a test not just for David Moyes and the team but also the fans. By now Moyes will realised the huge size of the task confronting him. Our display demonstrated a disjointed and ineffectual effort against a depleted Watford shorn of many first team regulars. Despite this Silva’s men produced a confident display of verve and attacking football which West Ham can only dream of. Those who argued for the hiring of Silva over the summer will feel vindicated.
Yet there is no point in now dwelling on what might have been, in actual fact, we need managerial speculation now like we need a hole in the head.
What we do need to manage is expectation. I wrote last week that Moyes’ capacity to transform our squad’s fitness was fancifully overblown. Large numbers of our squad, absent during the international break, would have barely met Moyes, in Winston Read’s case, returning only hours before travelling to Watford. , Upcoming fixture congestion will [[[provide no opportunity for any boot camp style fitness program. Expecting Moyes to wave an immediate fitness magic wand was unrealistic. The club videos advertising new training intensity looks like unfortunate spin now.
We need to face some unpalatable facts. For some weeks it has been clear that we are in for a relegation fight. Too many points have been conceded against average or poor teams. Games will get no easier in the weeks ahead. We have consistently demonstrated that we have the worst defence in the premiership. An average team with the worst defence will always struggle. We are in for a rocky ride.
Things are already turning ugly with some of our fans. The stupidity of some of Carroll’s play against Watford was immediately exceeded by the stupidity of fans who abuse him outside the ground. This is entirely counterproductive. In this period of adversity with a team struggling for confidence players will need not abuse but support like they has rarely needed it before.
There will be no easy games. An expectation to roll over teams like Watford, Brighton, Stoke, and Bournemouth West Bromwich should not currently exist. Lashing out at the team, manager and even the Board because we have a team bereft of confidence is a luxury we cannot afford.
Moyes was not a popular appointment and the chances are that he has inherited a squad which will give him negative results. It is likely that any honeymoon period will be brief and dissent will emerge. But for people to react with an “I told you so” will not help, Moyes is the Manager until the end of the season and no fan protest will or indeed even should change this. Multiple managerial sacking rarely helps any club.
Equally futile is lashing out at our Board. We cannot afford the luxury of petulant Stadium protests. We all tend to look for blame but this is currently an indulgence.
We have been here before. The protest against the huge own goal of the Bond scheme in 1991 was objectively entirely justified. Nevertheless however justified the protest was it still resulted in a toxic atmosphere which Billy Bonds, our manager at the time, was convinced was the cause of our relegation.
I do not want to see history repeat itself. It seems some would almost welcome relegation if it gave them a stick to beat the Board with and punish them for moving to what they repeatedly call the “Athletics Bowl in a desperate attempt to create a “feel bad” atmosphere. There should be no satisfaction in seeing West Ham fail. Constant whining about how the Board allegedly “promised the next level” is pointless now. We have to become more positive if West Ham is ever to thrive again. Opposition fans love watching our current disunity. Upton Park is no more, we can either engage in perennial but futile whingeing about the past or we can try to move on a support the club.Having said that, I will now make my own constructive Board criticism. The fact is that they also have to considerably up their game. The announcement following Moyes’ appointment was clumsy at best. They are far too fond of getting excuses in early. They seem to have been taking lessons from the Boris Johnston School of Diplomacy. Sullivan’s “shooting from the hip” description of Moyes as a “gamble” was crass in the extreme. His subsequent description of Moyes as not the best but only “the “best available” also damns him with faint praise. Sullivan is the boss at West Ham so he has the right to speak his mind. However despite Boris’s example a political leader is normally media coached to avoid making these sorts of gaffs. , Sullivan desperately needs similar support. The problem is who, at West Ham, will be able to tell him he needs this? Will the brave PR person please stand up?
So we must positively support Moyes and the club as a whole in the difficult weeks ahead. From top to bottom, from Board to fans, we must embrace Moyes as a legitimate Manager and try to build confidence in our team.
Once upon a time West Ham used to be famous for supporting our team in adversity. Players remember fans support much more when things are going badly rather than when they are going well. From tomorrow night’s game against Leicester I have committed myself to supporting the team through our current adversity. I will not leave early no matter what the score. I will not boo, no matter what. I will try to encourage and do my tiny bit to improve the love and support the team can feel. In return I expect the team to try their best. This use to be the West Ham Mojo. If we are to prove that there are three teams worse than us we need to rediscover it fast.
COYI
David Griffith