Forget Jose Mourinho - West Ham's ideal David Moyes replacement could not be any more obvious

Posted Tuesday, April 16, 2024 by 3addedminutes.com

The former Chelsea manager has been linked with a move to the London Stadium.

There are plenty of uses for hammers. You can, for instance, lose two football matches in the span of less than a week and utilise them as a means of inserting final nails into coffins.

It wasn’t so very long ago that the common consensus settled on the prospect of David Moyes leaving West Ham in the immediate future. The craggy Scot went through something of a rough patch around the turn of the year, and the feeling in East London seemed to be that a slew of poor results, sleepwalked towards in pessimistically conservative fashion, would be enough to relieve him of his duties sooner rather than later.

There are plenty of uses for hammers. You can, for instance, lose two football matches in the span of less than a week and utilise them as a means of inserting final nails into coffins.

In a matter of days, West Ham suffered two consecutive 2-0 defeats; firstly to Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League, and then to Fulham in the Premier League. Neither one is necessarily fatal to the Irons’ ambitions this season - perhaps they will somehow overcome their deficit in the second leg against Xabi Alonso’s newly-crowned Bundesliga champions, and they are still very much in the running for European qualification - but there is a feeling that the Hammers now face an uphill battle on both fronts, and the manner in which they lost did little to appease Moyes’ most vocal critics. Against Leverkusen in particular, they registered just 27% possession and one shot on goal.

As things stand, the West Ham manager’s contract with the club expires at the end of June, and whereas there has been talk of a potential extension, there are now rumblings that suggest the Hammers may look to replace him in the coming months. One name that is already being bandied about is that of Jose Mourinho, recently cut loose by Serie A outfit AS Roma. This may not be the wisest idea.

You see, one of the biggest issues West Ham supporters have with Moyes is his tactical approach. Parked buses and siege mentalities are all well and good when you’re winning matches, but to slump to dire defeats while seemingly offering no semblance of a meaningful offensive is, evidently, frustrating. To that end, nobody does sitting deep and grinding out results quite like the Special One.

Maybe it would work for a while, like it has at most other clubs that he has managed. Perhaps West Ham would obstinately bludgeon their way to a top six finish next season or another European final in some far flung continental capital. But the overwhelming evidence of Mourinho’s career thus far suggests that things would turn eventually, and when they did, it would get tense and gruesome.

Instead, if the Hammers really want to push on in the aftermath of Moyes’ eventual departure, they need to bring in a progressive and forward-thinking manager who is capable of transforming the way that they go about their on-field activity. Paulo Fonseca immediately springs to mind.

The LOSC Lille coach has been on West Ham’s radar for quite some time, and has been perpetually linked with a move to the Premier League in recent seasons. The Portuguese’s contract in France expires at the end of the campaign, and his personal brand of attacking football and preference to employ an ambitious 4-2-3-1 formation would represent a marked shift away from the perceived drudgery of Moyes’ recent efforts.

What’s more, he has good experience in continental competition, and has won several pieces of silverware over the course of his career. His name might not be as auspicious as Mourinho’s, but for where West Ham are at - and more importantly, where they want to get to - he feels like a more natural fit.Only time will tell whether West Ham stick or twist when it comes to their managerial situation this summer, but if they do elect for a change in the dugout, then they could do far worse than taking another look at Fonseca.