David Moyes has apologised to West Ham fans after being demolished by Arsenal, but he was keen to remind everyone what he has done for the club.
Now more than ever, fans have started to turn against David Moyes. Despite being in a strong position, the football on display at West Ham has been absolutely awful to watch and their heaviest home defeat in 61 years has pushed many over the edge to wanting Moyes gone.
The Hammers were not expecting to beat Arsenal, but a 6-0 loss was not something that would have crossed anyone’s mind. Even after the game, Moyes could not pinpoint exactly what led to such a dismal display from his side.
“It’s a day we don’t want to really remember,” he confirmed when speaking to WHUFC.com. “I don’t know the reason why [the players weren’t at it today]. We’ve had a week’s preparation, and we’ve tried to try to do things the way we would do in a normal lead-up to a weekend game.”
“From minute one, we could hardly lay a glove on them, we didn’t get close to them and we probably showed them a bit too much respect. Then we started to make some really, really stupid decisions in our distribution and our passing and when we should pass or when we should play forward and just too many things were wrong today.”
“It’s not like us. We are normally pretty strong at set pieces in both boxes and today Arsenal were very good at them. They work really hard at it and have got a really good set-piece coach and you could see that by what they’ve done today.”
Unfortunately, not many were actually left surprised at the final score given that they have conceded 5 twice already this season. However, Moyes believes the blame lies on everyone at the club and that they need to work as a collective to put things right.
“It’s not about the players and not about the manager. It’s how we all get together and I’ve said that to the players. How we respond now is really going to be big and probably the levels we need to show we’re going to have to show, we’re going to have to show a bigger level of fight and commitment. Over my time here at West Ham, whether it be this period or the one before, I really can’t remember too many of my teams performing as badly defensively and if we have done in the past maybe we maybe didn’t quite have the same level of defenders or maybe not the same level of players.”
Respectably, the Scotsman was willing to “apologise for today’s performance and result” but was quick to add in what he has done for the club over the past few years.
“I look back and when I came in we had to try and avoid relegation, and we avoided relegation. The journey we’ve all been on in the last three or four years trying to qualify for Europe, getting to a semi-final, and you all know the good times we had in Prague about six months ago.”
“That will not make people feel too much happier with today’s result, but I think it’s just important that we remember that those good times in football can also be bad times and today was a bad day for us.”
While he has achieved great things, turning to the past is becoming his common defence whenever the Irons put in a poor performance. Winning the Conference League certainly gives him some miles in the tank, but that can only take him so far if things keep going the way they are.