It is fair to say that the redemption of David Moyes is complete. He was sacked from his ill-fated spell at Manchester United after a defeat to Liverpool and last weekend his West Ham United side toppled Jurgen Klopp’s side for the first time since moving to the London Stadium.
Moyes, who celebrated his 1,000th game as a manager with the Liverpool win, told Sky Sports that he had no regrets about trying to replace Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford.
“I look back with unbelievable fondness, but great disappointment I didn’t do well enough to get longer than 10 months. I believe that I deserved longer, but that’s not my decision.
“My style would be to build a club, like I feel I did with Everton – and rebuild them. I didn’t need to build Manchester United. I was following and I wanted to follow Sir Alex.
“There was obviously going to be a change of the guard there a little bit, regarding players at the time. But overall it was a great experience, just one, unfortunately, for me was a bit too short.”
The 58-year-old Scot has impressed during his second spell at West Ham and the 3-2 win over highflying Liverpool took them to third in the table.
They are also third on the list of points gained since the turn of the year – a list which reads reigning English Premier League champions Manchester City (80) and reigning UEFA Champions League holders Chelsea (66) and Moyes’ side on 65.
The latest three came after dismantling Liverpool, despite UEFA Europa League commitments in midweek.
“We played Thursday night, so to come and put on a performance with the energy and hang in at the end was great by the players,” he said.
“If you’ve seen Liverpool play recently they’ve been so good with the ball and I think they’ve improved, and we tried to shore it up a little bit but I didn’t like it as much in the first half, so we did another subtle change at halftime to try and alter it.
“It certainly worked because our play in the second half was great, and we got three goals and maybe on another day we could have had another one or two.”
“We tried to change a little bit in the first half to have more chance to get more of the ball but in truth it didn’t work as well as it should have.
“That’s all down to Liverpool and the way they change and find spaces to play in, if you try to fill a space they find another space and it gives you more problems.
“I didn’t think we played that well first half. I don’t think we started slowly, it’s just that Liverpool were so good.”
Moyes said that he had altered the position of forward Pablo Fornals at the interval.
“We tweaked it at halftime and altered Pablo’s position a little bit and I thought the boys played really well in the second half and scored good goals, and were maybe a bit unlucky not to score more,” he said.
“Liverpool have been in such good form and they were so good and played some great stuff.
“But we have a bit of resilience, we dig in and might not have had the ball that much. We decided to go for counterattacks and corner kicks, which isn’t a bad recipe if we’re not going to have much of the ball.”
This career renaissance is something that Moyes said he is “very much” enjoying, with West Ham fans delighted with their surge up the table over the last couple of seasons. The boss is not looking for anything other than three points no matter who visits.
“I challenge myself, I have to win,” Moyes said. “I’m not going out to get a draw, or lose, or anything else, I’m trying to win.
“I prepare to win but it’s never easy beating Liverpool, they’ve always had really good teams, and unless you have a good team, you’re going to struggle to beat them.”
Moyes could arguably look at his West Ham side, who have risen from the bottom half of the table to Champions League places – leapfrogging Liverpool to third with the weekend’s win.
Could they go further than that?
“I don’t know,” said Fornals, when asked by BBC Sport if West Ham could be the next Leicester City and go on to win the title. “It is too early to say. But fighting for each game as we did today, why not dream?”
Moyes is allowing himself to dream a little too – even if he played down their title chances.
“I want to be really positive all the time, I would like to say that is what we can do but I don’t see that at the moment,” the Scot said when he was asked if he considered his side to be challengers.
His goals are a little less lofty than lifting the English Premier League trophy but already within reach.
“We missed out on Champions League football by two points – so why can we not be there?
“We are not getting carried away but it is feeling good at the moment.”
Long may it continue for the man who was much maligned after his disappointing stint at Manchester United but has built his way back up.
The former Preston North End and Everton boss went to Spain with Real Sociedad after leaving Old Trafford before a spell at Sunderland and these two at West Ham United.
The Hammers beat Carabao Cup holders Manchester City to move on to the last eight of the League Cup and only Brentford and Manchester United have beaten Moyes’ side this season.
The sky is the limit in East London.
