It was in May 2021 and West Ham United had clinched a top-six finish when, in private, David Moyes admitted that qualifying for Europe was not enough in itself for him. He had wanted sixth spot to send West Ham into the Europa League, not the Conference League.
For much of an inspired run in the second continental competition, it seemed a route into the Champions League. Even after their ill-tempered exit to Eintracht Frankfurt in the semi-finals, the Europa League beckoned again. A goal up at half-time on the final day at Brighton, they were headed for sixth spot. A second-half collapse demoted them to seventh. A year on, West Ham are debuting in the Conference League.
Their manager’s attitude has changed, perhaps out of necessity. “It is an absolutely fantastic thing,” Moyes said on Sunday. “We finished seventh in the league last year and you’re talking about, ‘Is Europe good?’ My goodness, I don’t know how many teams in the leagues would shake your hand and say: ‘Please give us European football.’”
It is a valid point, and for years West Ham would have been one of those clubs looking on enviously. The gap between ambition and reality has been huge at times. They had not had a fine European run in four decades until last year; Moyes’ reinvention of the club that long flattered to deceive should make them more regular occurrences. He is a specialist in piloting a path into the positions between fifth and eighth – in contrast, West Ham had not managed consecutive top-seven finishes until his reappointment – and a club who welcomed 62,443 fans to their opening home game of the season have the kind of infrastructure to suggest their participation in Europe should not be a one-off.
Moyes stands for consistency and relentlessness, whereas West Ham have tended to follow good seasons with bad. The downside of the Scot’s record is that it still does not include any trophies, other than a Second Division title with Preston and a Community Shield Manchester United were only in because Sir Alex Ferguson had won the Premier League.
The Conference League offers the opportunity to remedy that. Certainly, West Ham start a play-off against Viborg, who finished seventh in the Danish Superliga last year, expected to win, and not merely on Thursday. They must rank among the competition’s favourites, along with Fiorentina and Villarreal, albeit with the caveat that it may be won by a team who start the season in the Europa League.
West Ham begin with a trio of suspensions, which should each be a cause for embarrassment. Aaron Cresswell’s red card against Frankfurt bore certain similarities with his dismissal against Lyon, suggesting he had learnt no lessons whatsoever. Moyes was sent to the stands for booting the ball at a ball boy. Declan Rice has a two-match ban for accusing the referee of corruption; he may wish to check the definition of the word. If there is a flattering slant on Moyes’ and Rice’s actions, they showed how much winning the Europa League mattered to West Ham.
Now victory of any kind may be welcome. Their Premier League campaign has begun with back-to-back defeats. The wait for a first goal has increased, which, as their last four pre-season matches produced just three, indicates the issues may go beyond simply facing Manchester City and doing everything but score as a visit to Nottingham Forest included a missed penalty, a goal-line clearance, a disallowed strike and some brushes with the woodwork.
This ought to afford a chance to give maiden starts to Moyes’ two attacking additions. Gianluca Scamacca has made two substitute appearances and West Ham’s progress in Europe last year meant Michail Antonio was overworked and his goals dried up. Maxwel Cornet debuted in Nottingham.
The former Lyon winger scored four Champions League goals against Manchester City and Moyes’ summer business shows that he is intent on building a squad big enough to compete on various fronts and with plenty of European pedigree. A target, Emerson Palmieri, was a Champions League winner with Chelsea in 2021, albeit as an unused substitute in the final, and scored in a knockout win over Atletico Madrid; Moyes’ newest signing, Thilo Kehrer, played in the 2020 final for Paris Saint-Germain.
Each could look a sign of ambition, or the sort of signing West Ham used to make in the days when they would buy bigger clubs’ cast-offs and sign players on the way down. Moyes has largely succeeded in reinventing West Ham, in forging a work ethic, in finding players who share his determination. Past Hammers teams have conjured a number of ignominious European exits. This one got memorable wins against Sevilla and Lyon last season. But if similarly fond memories are to be created, West Ham first have to avoid reverting to type, avert upsets and ensure that, for only the second time since 1981, they play in Europe after Christmas.
