With West Ham United really pulling themselves together following the struggles the club had in the 2019/20 season where relegation was narrowly avoided by only five points, the 2020/21 campaign turned into a massive success for manager David Moyes as he led the side to a sixth place finish in the English Premier League and booked a Europa League adventure for 2021/22.
The likes of Betway and the Betway Blog would’ve given fans very favourable odds last summer on The Hammers not only repeating that kind of top flight success, but also having the strength and depth to progress through to the latter rounds of the Europa League and as I type Moyes is preparing what is an increasingly injury hit group of players for a make or break Round of 16 second leg tie against Sevilla – but even getting to that stage of the competition has probably surprised quite a few who live outside the club in the wider world of football.
The achievement certainly shouldn’t be sniffed at with the club continuing to sit in the Europa League spots at this late stage of the season and although Arsenal have a couple of games in hand, should they fail to take advantage of that, there is only a three point gap to fourth place and a potential Champions League journey in the season to come.
Whilst Moyes might have to deal with the aforementioned potential injury crisis as the club slowly heads towards the end of the month of March and that will cause it’s own concerns, there’s every reason for optimism for both the nine games that remain in the 2021/22 campaign and then the years still to come.
Moyes has managed to successfully turn the club around and galvanize the players in a way that he failed to do in his first spell in charge, and his reappointment as manager back in December 2019 is starting to look like a very unlikely masterstroke from the clubs owners given the performances and successful results he’s now beginning to pull out of his hat. Given the short life span of managers in the English top flight these days, 50 wins in 107 games can’t be ignored and only the most pessimistic of people won’t think that particular statistic will continue to improve on an upward trend before we hit next summer and Moyes again has the chance to further improve the squad in the transfer market with the hopes of making even more of a push for a Champions League spot and some domestic silverware to bolster the clubs trophy cabinet.
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