'Even allowing for inflation, this thread is not worth 198 Terry Francises' - EPL 2017-18

far be it from me to suggest that Messrs Gold and Sullivan may not be astute football minds

he's been punditing on BEIN Sports of late. Manages to project an overwhelming air of failure and despair even when sat next to Keys and Gray

oh I guess Allardyce is getting the Everton job too

looking forward to his first press conference. can we try to guess some quotes?

"the reality is we're in a relegation battle. there's no guarantee we'll get out of that."

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe"

Haha

I approve this appointment

"It's all about perspective. Trying to battle relegation isn't as bad as, say, battling cancer. Relegation isn't the end of the world. I'll make sure my players understand this. Fans too."

looking forward to his first press conference.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03147/bornonthefourth_3147942b.jpg

West Ham hierarchy been shaken by fans response to prospect of David Moyes becoming their next manager but he is still expected to take over

— Jason Burt (@JBurtTelegraph) November 5, 2017

http://i3.irishmirror.ie/incoming/article3274364.ece/ALTERNATES/s1227b/David-Moyes-1.jpg
'Appy 'ammer.

admit it, you photoshopped that :D

"the truth is we're going down. all of us are getting relegated each day, in various ways, in our lives, our relationships with others, in how we think of ourselves. we have to face up to it."

"relegation is not an automatic death sentence. many clubs live a full and happy life after relegation."

Two shocking appointments

If Sean Dyche had been called Sam Allardyche he'd have got the job.

Rah

Moyes added: “I think we’ve got a good squad. At the moment they should be in a better position than they are, and I believe they will be come the end of the season.

he's lost the run of himself completely.

mainly joking i can't help but feel touched by the ray of hope

West Ham United can confirm the appointment of David Moyes as the Club’s manager. pic.twitter.com/AIOWnHWn27

— West Ham United (@WestHamUtd) November 7, 2017

seems they've appointed his ghost

Sullivan told the club website: “I would like to welcome David to West Ham United. This is a unique position for David Gold and myself - it is the first time in almost eight years at West Ham United that we have appointed a new manager during the season.

for a split second I thought this quote was going to end "...who is also called David"

Looks like Scotland's dodged a bullet at least. Though he'll still be Scotland manager at some point in the near future.

that whu announcement video is hilarious, why the fuck is it so brown and vintage?

"Have you been injured at work?" pic.twitter.com/fSX5n626AA

— Ronan Fitzgerald (@rmkf) November 7, 2017

Haha. Yessssss. Not gonna lie, I don't know what we did to deserve this, but it feels like xmas morning.

It's a pity Croatia replaced their manager so recently.

Bilic off to Spain next or what dwe think

The world's his oxter.

West Ham's next six games

Watford (a)
Leicester City (h)
Everton (a)
Manchester City (a)
Chelsea (h)
Arsenal (h)

If he hasn't had a win by the time they get to that Everton game this is gonna be fun. Probably a good time to be playing Watford, terrible time to be playing Leicester.

they could conceivably lose all six of those

He'll lose five and win 1-0 against Arsenal due to a penalty that never should've been giving because of Arnautovic diving: Wenger out, Moyes to lose the six games after that, but "we won at Arsenal, anything's possible".

http://www.football365.com/news/david-moyes-the-ridiculous-and-uninspiring-statistics

This is withering stuff:

* David Moyes spent £27.6million on Didier Ndong, Papy Djilobodji, Paddy McNair, Donald Love, Adnan Januzaj, Javier Manquillo, Jason Denayer and Steven Pienaar the last time he was put in charge of a transfer window.

* Two of David Moyes’ three most expensive signings ever are Marouane Fellaini.

* David Moyes has threatened to slap as many female journalists as he has won Premier League games since March 18 (1).

In fairness he's threatened to win a few games in that the also without slapping anyone

he hasn't threatened to win a game since about halfway through his Utd tenure

tbf that list of signings mostly shows the absolute desperation of sunderland's transfer dealings/kitty

Also scouting networks etc - the buck for Sunderland's woeful organisation and lack of spirit last year probably stops with Moyes but I get the impression that player recruitment is more complicated than that.

his recruitment was a shambles at Utd too

chased Fabregas/Bale all summer, then defaulted to Baines/Fellaini and only managed to get in the latter for an inflated price. This from a man who was alleged to have one of the best scouting networks in England when he was at Everton

Did he take that scouting network with him?

I thought the story was that he gave the Man Utd hierarchy a list of the players he wanted and they failed to get almost all of them? I don't follow prem stuff very closely, mind.

To what extent have West Ham's scouting/recruitment personnel changed over the last couple of years? They made some great + progressive signings a few years ago with Payet/Antonio/Lanzini etc but their recent acquisitions have been pretty dodgy, signing the likes of Arnatovic, Snodgrass etc without thinking about how they'd fit into the team.

Arnautovic.

he didn't take the scouting network with him, but you would hope he'd at least be aware of some non-star names on the continent

Bale & Fabregas were patently ungettable, so surely you have back-up targets?

he also decided not to sign Thiago Alcantara

^^ for real on Thiago? I'd rather not have known that, christ.

presumably can blame ed woodward or whatever for a bunch of this as well.

players that moyes signed at man united:

Guillermo Varela - £2M
Marouane Fellaini - £27.5M
Saidy Janko - £700k
Juan Mata - £37.1M

they didn't give him anything like the budget lvg or mou have had. not to defend him, he obv did a terrible job.

Yeah that's patently true!

I have this ill-informed and half-formed thought in the back of my head that too much importance is attached to a manager overall, particularly when the manager's role is usually closer to first-team coach these days. Some of these clubs seem to behave like sick organisations and it takes more than a football manager to sort them out.

Neither should they make the sick organisation worse, mind, and one gets the impression that DM has left his last two clubs in a sorrier state than he found them.

The budget was there

Utd outbid Madrid for Bale

Ah did they though

United have always been prepared to fling gigantic amounts of money at marquee signings, it's the squad-building elsewhere that's been at fault. In recent years they've tended to be short of the sort of unglamorous players that knit the team together and/or provide cover when they need it. I mean I know Fellaini is basically one of those players but that's a lot of money to spend on one.

According to his agent, yeah