sport news David Moyes will never be revered at West Ham like he is at Everton. But he ... trends now

A friend of mine has a lovely picture as the screensaver on his laptop. It’s a photo taken from the centre circle of West Ham players celebrating their Europa Conference League success in front of a throng of supporters in Prague last spring.

I am not a huge fan of the competition but that doesn’t really matter. That night – that journey, that trophy – meant the world to West Ham. In terms of their manager David Moyes, meanwhile, it represents a career highlight.

So why the rancour and the bitterness now? Why the talk of betrayal? Why the anger?

Moyes will leave West Ham at the end of this season and that feels about right, for him and the club. All sporting relationships have a natural timespan. All unions reach a point where they serve nobody. And that is where West Ham and Moyes are right now. It’s called the end of the road and should not be confused with failure.

The truth is that West Ham and Moyes represent a modern sporting success story at a time when it’s increasingly difficult for clubs below the very top level to make them happen. This is the way it should be viewed and celebrated.

West Ham are an established and aspirational Premier League club. The Moyes era has underwritten all that. His team played well in Europe once again this season. Their stadium out in Stratford is full every week and we no longer have to listen to people say how bad it is, how unsuitable it is for atmosphere. The reason is not that anything has changed at the London Stadium only that there has actually been some football to talk about instead.

It has not all been perfect. Supporters would like to have seen a team playing on the front foot more often. They would have liked to have seen a few more risks. 

Equally, they have been able to watch talents such as Jarrod Bowen grow before their eyes. This season, at least early on, the talk was of their summer signing Mohammed Kudus.

But Moyes’ second spell at West Ham has been progressive and that is what football is about. It’s about moving forwards. That the 61-year-old has been at the helm of this for three-and-a-half years is testimony to a man’s desire to work and to a willingness to show himself and indeed the football world that his lean spells at Manchester United, Real Sociedad and Sunderland were not to define him.

I witnessed Moyes’ struggles at United from close quarters. I was covering the club at the time. I was there for a pre-season tour in Thailand, Australia and Japan. I was at his first game and, not terribly long after, his last. He was not cut out for that job. It was too big for him. A horrible cliché but also desperately true.

Beyond that, his time trying to find a way to come again in Spain and then on Wearside was peculiarly unproductive. In truth, he looked ruined by what had happened at Old Trafford. It was as though something vital had been taken from him, never to be returned.

But Moyes was not to be that man. He was not to be that type beaten and driven away by this most brutal of sporting professions. Moyes can sometimes be a little thin-skinned, not always able to brush off criticism

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