It was rather like that time someone left a Starbucks cup in shot on an episode of Game of Thrones.
They were clenched fists, not flagons of ale, that West Ham fans raised in celebration in the away end at Craven Cottage, but as a ‘Moyes Out’ banner bobbed about among them, something about the scene did not quite fit.
Saturday’s protest seemed ill-timed, with the Irons having bounced back impressively from their Newcastle mauling and climbed clear of the relegation zone, as did the taunting of Moyes’s substitutions, which were ultimately vindicated in seeing out only a second away League win of the season.
But both told of the dangerous place the Scot has reached in the minds of many supporters, one in which the losses are because of him, the wins in spite of him.
That view could hardly have been made clearer than across the Hammers’ past two matches, with Moyes chastised after individual errors from key players caused the self-destruction against the Toon, then hardly credited despite the Fulham victory coming off the back of five changes and a tactical tweak.
Granted, Moyes had been picking the teams prior to Saturday, too, and perhaps the switch to a 4-4-2 was more the mark of a man chucking the lot at the wall than any great calculated gamble. But as he discussed the concept of legacy here in Belgium, where West Ham meet KAA Gent in the first leg of their Europa Conference League quarter-final tonight, it was difficult to escape the feeling that, whatever happens from here on the home front, this season’s struggles have already tarnished it.
A trophy, though — and maybe only a trophy — could yet change all that, not just for Moyes, but for many of the players who have underwhelmed all term.
“I think the legacy for any player to do that would be an incredible achievement for the individual and the club,” Moyes said yesterday. At times this run has felt like a bit of a penalty kick, a golden road laid out through a third-rate tournament not long in existence and populated by unheralded teams, of which the Hammers have had a particularly kind pick. But whether in this competition or the Europa League, many English sides, burnished with the same advantages of Premier League resource, have failed to capitalise.
“I can think of other teams who got knocked out and didn’t get this far,” Moyes said, no doubt referencing Tottenham’s group-stage exit last year. “We’ve been able to do that. You mustn’t underestimate the value of sitting here in a quarter-final. It’s a big thing.”
Perhaps it does not feel like it now, the damage to too great an extent already done, and perhaps it still will not in the summer, when Moyes’s future is up for debate. But in years to come, or indeed, in years past, would a club with just four major trophies in its history really let a ‘got-away-with-one’ season in the League taint a glorious one on the continent?
There is still a way to go on both fronts yet, with League safety far from assured and Gent set to pose the biggest threat to West Ham’s Euro hopes this season.
Hein Vanhaezebrouck’s side have won four of their last five in the League and reached this stage with a 4-1 win at Istanbul Basaksehir. Talk of a trophy is, as Moyes was at pains to express, premature. Right now, though, it also looks his likeliest route to salvation.
