The new manager hunt (was the Moyes thread) only 3 days to wait...

Cuz1

I get that Aslef but he wouldn’t be the first or last to do that in football management, do we believe Moyes wasn’t tapped up before, I feel is stock as gone down a little since so wouldn’t inspire me if he was offered it now

ASLEFshrugged

I'm sure they did negotiate with Moyes before they sacked Slav but they didn't go blabbing to the press and media that it was done and dusted before the Liverpool game, did they? Obviously they've learnt their lesson from the MO'N episode

Cuz1

Though it was obvious by all reports that Moyes was in fact going to get the job just not confirmed, by delaying the announcement by a day doesn’t make it any less underhanded

Bazshuayi

MO'N is one of those managers that should be consigned to the past when the top league was called Division1- Im not exactly enamoured with Moyes but MO'N is very close to scraping the bottom of the barrel.

chicagohammer

It is probably true that a lesson was learned but there is also possibility that there are different dynamics at work here.

Our owners must have known that the appointment of Moyes would in all likliehood create a social media backlash, and they were right, I think that had the news leaked out earlier than it did, there is the very real possibility that the deal would have been fatally impacted so they felt they had to be especially cautious and tight lipped about the news

At the time, they probably felt there was probably less concern over any negative fan reaction over the potential appointment of MO’N as I think he would have had a fairly high approval rating.

I recall that at the time I was quite happy about the idea.

Not matter, let’s behind the team and manager this weekend.


coyi

PrestonHammer

My company delivers the fruit and veg to the training ground. According to the bloke who does the deliveries, he hasn't seen the players looking knackered and sweaty for ages. Could be a good sign.

sweepy23

I have no doubt Moyes will get them fit. It’s the rest I worry about.

thornburyiron

Don't think they'd have been too impressed with the dev squad tonight, thrashed 5-1 at home.

Lukerz

Sounds like the first team

Cuz1

What sort of squad did we have out anybody know, being ripped apart in my derby supporting pub. Grrrrrr

thornburyiron

Trott, Johnson (Scully 64), Akinola, Pike (Coventry 50), Powell, Quina, Makasi, Kemp (Diangana 56), Samuelsen, Haksabanovic, Martinez

OutcastLondoner

PrestonHammer said:

My company delivers the fruit and veg to the training ground. According to the bloke who does the deliveries, he hasn't seen the players looking knackered and sweaty for ages. Could be a good sign.

In the days of the ITK, I do miss this type of intel.

thornburyiron

In his pre match press call he said the players had told him they didn't work hard enough so let's hope he's worked them as hard as need be without going too far.

Cuz1

So what’s to stop those players who thort that doing extra sessions themselves maybe that was part of the indiscipline within the squad

thornburyiron

It's not about extra sessions it's about intensity. Doing the same exercises but a bit quicker isn't necessarily what was wanted.

Cuz1

As a professional footballer and let’s be honest they arnt just starting there careers should they really be saying they haven’t been trained hard enough, self discipline for a start and if they needed to then say they wearnt in my eyes is pure laziness and arnt fit to wear the shirt

ASLEFshrugged

Players can only do the training routines given them by the coaches, even fitness and weight training is supervised. They not allowed to just go into the gym on their own without someone making sure they don't overdo it and strain something

OldCastleSwift

Another indication that Bilic's training regime was probably not the best, this time from Obiang:

“We are training more than before, not in terms of time, but in terms of the quality of the things they are doing. The manager has changed the intensity of many things, we have done more things tactically, and he’s bringing everything new for us, which is good because he is giving us his philosophy."

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

So....the training sessions aren’t necessarily longer, however there could be certain parts of certain drills that Moyes wants done at a fast, quicker more intense pace. Perhaps he doesn’t focus us much on shooting etc who knows? Perhaps he spends more time showing them how/where he wants them to be or react in a certain situation and also how they line up? It could just be that it’s different to what SB focused?

I’m sure we will see slight upturn in what looks like fitness and probably performance, let’s hope so, we need some results

imagelost

Slav record 11 for 23 against 9 points
After 11 games
Moyes record “ we wait like coiled springs
coyi

AdMeus_CaputFilius

Well he had two weeks and things look no different to me, same players, similar formation, same problems, same result. There should have been some sort of improvement in that time, so was the problem the manager or is it something else?

Could it be that the trio at the top, despite their 'experience' are not capable of running or competent to run a club in the top tier?

Do either DG or DS (the later being the majority shareholder) have too much say in how the team is run?

What did they achieve with Birmingham? Is their definition of a club being 'successful' different to ours (i.e. base on financial success rather than on the field)?

KB seem more intent on running her other 'Business and TV interest' than the club, is she the right person for the job?

What about her 'Management Team' what is their focus or has she just appointed people to carry out her instructions rather than given them authority to make decisions?

Does she actually get involved with the footballing side or is she just their for the sales, marketing and commercial activities - in which case should she be the CEO?

grey_til_I_dye

AdMeus

He had two days with the full squad, and had at least 4 players unavailable who would qualify as starters.

IronHerb

Pesky facts ;lol

AdMeus_CaputFilius

So? What did he do for the rest of the time? sit on his hands? twiddle his thumbs?

Or did he review the set up? Change the training? Review the past several performance to see if he could identify what was good/bad and make plans based on that? Did he do training and tactics with the members of the squad that were available or wait until they were al back - (if none of those things then he was very remiss) whatever it was made little or no difference.

Are you telling me Grey that at any time where we have 3 or 4 players that would be considered 'Starters' we should expect that type of performance? Or that our reserve/development team players are so poor they cannot be relied upon or cannot step up occasionally when they do get a game?

Management is more than just picking the players and sending out on to the Pitch. Do you not think it would have been better to put out a more defensive minded team and gone for a 0-0 bore draw - not good for the fans I know but it would have given the defence a confidence boost to not concede. We need to start somewhere and many on here have pointed to not conceding as that starting point, then building from there.

Normally I am all for attacking football and scoring goals, but we don't have the team to do that at present, we are in survival mode now so we should be looking for drawing away games and winning home games by small margins, if that means boring defensive football with 0-0 away draws and 1-0 home wins whilst we get a grip of the problems and progress from there, then so be it.

Before you ask, no I would not welcome SA back, he could do the job of keeping us up but IMO he does not have the vision to take us forwards, he is a risk avoider (bit like our owners) and you need to take some risks to progress.

grey_til_I_dye

AdMeus

I'm telling you he had 2 days with the squad that was fit, which was missing 4 senior players, rather than the 2 weeks you suggested.

By implication: I think we need to give him more time to see if he can change our fortunes around.

Cuz1

My mate said when he saw Moyes yesterday was all the gear, no idea lol let’s pray he’s wrong

adecoker

Can I be the first to include the expressions "under pressure West Ham manager Moyes" and "ashen-faced Hammers boss David Moyes" in a comment".

welovethehammers

Admeus - It seems that Moyes has correctly identified the problems we face and I believe he knows what he needs to address. I'm basing this off what I have read and the interviews of him so far.

However just identifying the problems is the very first step. It is not a quick fix. For example our fitness issues cannot be solved with a few hard training sessions. Unfortunately it takes time which isn't really on our hands but that isn't Moyes' fault - that is just the nature of our problems.

You wrote "same players, same tactics, same problems, same result". To me I think that he picked (almost) the best team we had. There was an improvement but we are not going to magically play well for 90 minutes and win just because there's a new manager here. It's not that simple. It wasn't the same players - Sakho came on, Arnie started, Masuaku came on too, Martinez and Quina were on the bench - I'm sure if Bilic was manager for that game those things wouldn't have happened. The "problems" were still there (e.g. Getting overworked in midfield) but we covered more ground than we had previously. As I said it's not a quick fix and we looked a bit better. Still a long way to go which is worrying but we did improve a bit. The result obviously wasn't great but it wasn't a 4-0 thrashing.

I'm certainly not happy with where we are but I'm realistic to notice we aren't going to be winning and performing every match for 90 mins straight away.

In terms of going for a 0-0 draw. With our team that is just not going to happen. Even if we put out a super defensive line up. In all honesty I think we actually did put out a defensive team and this probably didn't help. Playing 3 central midfielders in Noble Kouyate and Obiang means they'll sit quite deep. As a result we are going to be in our own half for most of the match. And then on top of that - those 3 "defensive" players offered little defensive help in midfield. So all that did meant we were on the edge of the box "defending" yet not actually doing much defending! I think attack is the best form of defence as long as we don't go gung ho. When Masuaku came on, he was willing to drive forward with the ball and get to the opposition's byline. This put us in an attacking position and changed the momentum of the game up to a point. We became territorally a bit stronger. Obviously we don't want all our players bombing forward like this and forgetting their defensive work, but with the right shape and tactics this is more effective imo than sitting back and trying to go for a 0-0 draw which is just not going to happen with our weak defence and midfield. If we had a solid spine to our team then yes this could work but that's not the case.

Yeoldhammer

We were defensive to be fair, a lot of punts up to Carroll but there were still massive gaps for Watford to exploit.

We're playing like a lower league team in the Premier League.

SuzanneClaret

Oh yes of course the boards fault Kayoute couldn't hit a barn door with an SUV yesterday!