David Moyes has challenged his players to show the quality they have to earn a place in his side and give West Ham United supporters a team to be excited and proud of.
The Scotsman took training for the first time since being reappointed Hammers manager on Monday, giving Moyes an opportunity to look over his squad of players ahead of Wednesday’s home match with Bournemouth.
A lifelong student of the game, Moyes has paid close attention to football in the top flight during his 18 months away from the Irons, and is looking to help his team find the reliability required to climb back up the table.
To do that that, Moyes is looking for each individual player to stand up and be counted so every single West Ham fan can enjoy what they watch every week at London Stadium.
“I watch a lot of football and I’ll be looking for a lot of players and looking to see, ‘Come on, who is going to stand up? Who is going to get the jersey?’” Moyes said. “There’s a good squad of players here. It will be very difficult on what I see to name my first XI because some weeks they play very well, some weeks they don’t.
“For me it’s about finding a level of consistency and I’m really putting it out there – it’s for the players to grab the shirt and say, ‘I’m keeping this’.
“We’ve got an incredible stadium, 60,000 supporters who come to West Ham, it’s now up to us to give them something where they can go away and say, ‘we like this’. From my point of view, I’ve come to try to make that better.”
By Moyes’ own admission, there are similarities between the Club’s current situation and the one he encountered when he first walked into West Ham in November 2017. The boss knows it is not just the group of players that need to prove themselves. He needs to do so too.
“I have always felt I am an extremely experienced manager. I think there are very few who will have had the games, and I could actually say wins, that I have had over my time. I was disappointed I didn't stay, which I said. But I totally understand that the owners have earned the right to make their own decision.
“I have always considered myself in a group of top managers, and I have got to come back and prove that again. That is what you have to do. I think football continuously makes you stand up to prove yourself whether you are a player or whether you are a manager. I have to do it again.”
Captain Mark Noble was an important player for Moyes in the 2017/18 season, as he has been under every manager he has played under, and the West Ham boss says the importance of a character like the midfielder cannot be understated.
What Moyes wants to see happen now is more players help Noble shoulder the responsibility of representing this Club.
Moyes continued: “Mark Noble has done brilliantly. He carries a lot of the responsibility of this Club, and he takes it, and he feels it. He’s told me that. He’s so desperate and so fed up having to scrap around the bottom. He wants to be playing with teams who are winning, competing higher up the league.
“It’s why it’s good to always have some of your own players. It means a really big thing. What you have to have is we need them to carry on the next generation, just like I do with people who we want to develop into future West Ham coaches or managers.
“We do need to share it and we also need to make sure we have the future ones down behind there somewhere, so when Mark steps away or is missing a few games, we have others who can step in.”
