According to a recent interview, West Ham manager David Moyes has hinted that his time at the club may be drawing to a close.
Moyes acknowledged the progress that the team has made during his tenure, including avoiding relegation, earning a place in Europe, and making it to the semi-finals of a European competition.
However, he also emphasized that the team’s success has not been a given, and that maintaining a high level of performance is difficult in a highly competitive league.
Moyes suggested that he is more relaxed about his position at West Ham now that he has achieved significant success with the team, but he also expressed his belief in the club’s potential to become a major and challenging force in the future.
He said (via Daily Mail):
‘We avoided relegation, we took them into Europe the next year, we get to the semi-final of a European competition, we finish seventh the second year.
‘So the perspective has made me say yeah, you know, if you’re gonna come to West Ham and expect to do six, seven years where you’re competing at the top, I think you’re probably kidding yourself on and I think anyone with any real football intelligence will probably go along with that.’
‘Because you just look at the sides at the moment, look at the form of Newcastle and other teams, Brighton have had an incredible run in what they’ve done. Brentford and Fulham are doing so well this year.
‘So you’ve got no entitlement to be there all the time, and when you are a club which have probably never been there, well there’s a good chance you could probably drop out of it.
‘So we’ve had a couple of incredible years which has meant I’m more relaxed and you know if it didn’t work here at West Ham then fine, you know, you take it and that would be it.
‘The biggest thing for me at West Ham is I see it having that much potential to improve, get better and be a real major club. It is a major club, but become a real challenging club and I think for the past couple of years we’ve proved that.’
Moyes first took over the West Ham job in 2017, midway through the season, and successfully helped the team avoid relegation.
He left the club in May 2018 when his six-month contract ended and he was not offered a new one.
He returned to managing West Ham in December 2019 on an 18th month contract replacing former Manuel Pellegrini with the club 17th in the table.
Not only did he help them avoid relegation, Moyes also led West Ham to a successful sixth-place finish in the table, securing a place in the Europa League the following season. In the year after that, Moyes furthered the team’s progress by taking them to the semi-finals of the Europa League, where they unfortunately lost to Frankfurt, who went on to win the tournament.
Pressure is mounting on David Moyes, and if results don’t improve, his time at West Ham could very well be close to an end.