Speaking on the latest installment on The West Ham Way podcast, Dave Walker slammed David Moyes after the Hammers put in an underwhelming display against Manchester United last weekend.
Moyes’ men went into the game at Old Trafford on Sunday just six points behind their hosts, having played one game fewer than Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side, but fell to a 1-0 defeat thanks to a Craig Dawson own-goal.
The capital club have been in fabulous form this season, with their 48-point haul keeping them in contention for Champions League football next season, although they have found life tough against the Premier League’s top teams.
Some supporters were disappointed with the lineup that the Scotsman opted for in the fixture against the Red Devils after he decided to drop Said Benrahma in favour of the more conservative Mark Noble, a tactic that didn’t please Walker.
He said: “We are a really, really good counter-attacking side. And to effectively counter-attack, you need attacking players, and you could argue that none of our central three players are naturally attacking. I’ll say you could argue; because Tom [Soucek] could be described as an all-rounder, which I think he is, Dec [Rice] is certainly going that way, Nobes certainly isn’t.
“So that ultimately leaves two outright attacking players on the pitch and both were left up front and completely isolated. Where were the wingers? Typically, in a formation like that, you would expect wing-backs to be bombing forward. Now, I don’t know if they were told not to, but they didn’t. They certainly didn’t do it enough.
“So, I think Moyes got that horrifically wrong and quite honestly, set us up like we were a team in the bottom five, not in the top five.
“Speaking of Moyes, as well as he’s done this season – and I want to stress that because obviously when he first came to West Ham, he had no support from me whatsoever, and I’m not going to kind of waiver that support because there’s a couple of games where I haven’t been that happy, I do want to make that clear.
“However, he does seem to be building a reputation as someone who loses his bottle against the big clubs.”
TIF Thoughts on Moyes…
It’s hard to aim any criticism at Moyes after the amazing job he has done at the London Stadium this season, however, many West Ham fans were left wondering ‘what if?’ after their sub-par performance over the weekend.
The former Everton and Sunderland boss has managed to find a nice balance between defence and attack for the most part during the current campaign, but after failing to record a single shot on target at Old Trafford, it’s hard to argue he did that on Sunday.
There are 10 league games left to play in 2020/21 for the Hammers, and if Moyes has serious ambitions of guiding West Ham to Europe’s elite competitions, then he may have to start placing more faith in his flair players sooner rather than later.