DAVID MOYES is back fighting it out at the top again.
This is the Moyes who over-achieved for 11 years at Everton — a three-time Manager of the Year, an astute recruiter of players, a builder of football clubs.
Now, after four successive jobs in which he was never afforded more than a year, Moyes is showing how, if you give him the time, he will produce the results.
West Ham, widely tipped as relegation candidates at the start of the season, are the top club in London, in fifth place with six straight wins and facing Liverpool tomorrow just two points behind the champions.
While Moyes insists the Hammers were overambitious in sanctioning a £175million splurge under Manuel Pellegrini, only to end up in relegation danger, he admits he cannot help but dream the ‘unrealistic’ dream of Champions League qualification.
When he returned to West Ham last season, the club was in need of change.
There were frustrated fans, too many under- performing expensive players and forward Michail Antonio having just demolished a wall in his sports car while dressed as a snowman.
A year on, Moyes has brought order and unity — modest new recruits are thriving, along with established players like Antonio.
Moyes said: “I want to be incredibly ambitious. I want to be competing in European football.
“I want to be competing against elite managers and elite clubs, nearly all the jobs I’ve been in have involved that. The job now is to get West Ham competing against elite clubs regularly.
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“It is a really big opportunity for somebody to get hold of the club and get it going right.”
So is Champions League qualification this season too ambitious?
Moyes said: “Yes, it’s too ambitious, yes. But I am ambitious. And because of that, I’m not going to stop dreaming about it or trying to do it.
“If this interview was taking place a year ago, you’d be saying ‘David, how are you going to avoid relegation?’.
“I know it’s a strange season but for us to play so well after lockdown, stay in the Premier League and now ‘Can you be in the top four?’. Last year, you’d have said there’s no way.
“So I think you have to say we are going to try.
“I don’t want to aim low but during lockdown, the Archbishop of York was talking about the Government and said ‘they need to promise less and deliver more’.
“We have to be careful we don’t promise things we can’t deliver. I don’t want to do that to West Ham fans. But I want to give them consistency, something sustainable.
‘THEY’D HAVE QUEUED FOR MILES’
“If this Liverpool game was taking place in front of supporters, you wouldn’t get a ticket anywhere.
“There are so many West Ham supporters and with the team doing this well, in the days when you queued at the turnstiles, they’d have queued for miles.
“I hope when that time comes it’s really, really difficult to get a ticket.”
Moyes steered West Ham to safety on a short-team deal in 2017-18.
But he was then snubbed by owners David Sullivan and David Gold, who plumped for former Manchester City boss Pellegrini and a huge spending spree on the likes of Sebastien Haller and Felipe Anderson, who have since been moved on.
So during his 18 months away, did Moyes keep a close eye on the club?
He said: “Yeah, I did. The club spent a lot of money.
“The owners were trying to show the supporters they would back the manager.
“You’d have to give the owners credit for spending — I think it was almost £200m.
‘TOO BIG A JUMP, TOO QUICKLY’
“Unfortunately, it can happen that it doesn’t go to plan.
“I understand how you build a club, the stages you go through.
“West Ham made too big a jump too quickly and tried to do something which I don’t think is done.
“To sustain it, you have to do it in a certain fashion.
“The biggest thing West Ham needed was hungry players, whose effort is never questioned.
“I’ve always tried to squeeze every ounce out of every player.
“Go back to Everton and that was probably part of it there. I wanted a more positive vibe about this club.
“Being a football supporter, I was really aware of the way West Ham was perceived from outside.
“I felt the job of any manager is to improve the whole club.”
So how does Moyes, 57, look back on those times at Manchester United, Real Sociedad and Sunderland, which did not work out.
‘YOU’LL BE SACKED’
He said: “Carlo Ancelotti said recently that part of being a manager is that you’ll be sacked. You have to accept it.
“As a manager there will be blips. Yeah, I’ve had some blips. But I’ve also had great times.
“I’ve never doubted myself. You don’t get offered the jobs I’ve had if you don’t have something to back it up.
“You don’t get offered jobs in Spain. You don’t get offered one of the biggest clubs in England.
“But you’ve got to show it and on some occasions I’ve not been able to.
“Sometimes you might come across things which need changing and you can’t get the work done quickly enough.
“Some of those jobs we’re talking about would fit in that category.
“But I never think I’d do anything differently.
“We see some very well spoken-about managers having very difficult times. I fitted into that category. It’s not that easy a job all the time.”
Moyes speaks about West Ham’s players with genuine warmth and believes Declan Rice will become England captain if he continues to learn from skipper Mark Noble.
He describes early signings, Tomas Soucek and Jarrod Bowen, as ‘godsends’, likening Soucek to his Everton old boy Tim Cahill for his goals from midfield.
And along with fellow Czech Vladimir Coufal, he admitted Soucek keeps turning up to the club’s Rush Green training ground on days off.
Moyes added: “They are unbelievable. I’m going to need to lock the gates some days to keep them out. They have incredible energy and attitude.
“It makes a change that there’s people who are so glad to be playing, because sometimes it hasn’t looked that way.”
