We lost to Aston Villa – not a damning defeat but a defeat nonetheless at a time when every point matters.
With Villa scoring one of the most fluid training ground set pieces I’ve ever seen it’s hard to take it out on the team and every lover of the beautiful game can appreciate a brilliant goal like that.
It wasn’t until the commentators switched from talking about the match to showing the updated table that I really felt the sting. Everton currently sits in 8th place, one win behind Liverpool in 5th place, and with a simple three points Moyes could take the Blues into Europe. Whether it be Conference, Europa or Champions League is uncertain but all positions are possible at the time of this writing.
Within one year of managing Everton again, Moyes is already on the brink of taking a team to Europe, while West Ham fight like dogs in a relegation battle week in and week out.
The Desire for the West Ham Way
I turned the TV off with disdain. I didn’t want Moyes to stay – the football was stale, the team had calcified, his constant lacklustre performances on the pitch and dismayed post match interviews left us so desirous of something exciting, something more like the West Ham Way of old.
We didn’t get to watch beautiful football under Moyes – we got to watch disciplined measures of the game displacing the frivolity of other teams on the ball when good, and a consistently previewed counter attacking style when good.
But still, it was Moyes who led us to a 4-1 victory over Aston Villa in 2021, and as I turned off the television I couldn’t help but think that that winning team had been completely replaced. The West Ham socials had rolled out that winning clip before the match which I think is always a positive way to jinx the club.
Where Did the Class of 2021 Go?
I couldn’t help but realise all the decisive members excluding Jarrod Bowen are no longer on the team. What happened? Why did they leave? What didn’t work at West Ham for them?
Obviously Rice went onto greater glories, and from being our stalwart defensive midfielder he’s moved even further up the pitch releasing his ability as a playmaker for Arsenal. Why didn’t we unleash that? Was it just the transition of moving him from once centre back to a defensive midfielder that was our part of the training?
You also notice he set up Ben Johnson for his first Premier League goal which was supposed to be the beginning of something. An academy graduate scoring his first Premier League goal in a statement win – it felt like the next chapter in the club’s tradition of producing dependable, grounded professionals.
Instead, his trajectory became a reminder of how quickly football moves. Johnson never secured a consistent role, never convinced Moyes he was more than a utility option, and eventually left on a free transfer to Ipswich Town in 2024. It was a quiet exit for a player who once looked like a long‑term fixture. Now in the Championship, Johnson is finally getting the minutes he was denied in London. His recent 90‑minute performance against Sheffield Wednesday – a match Ipswich fans praised as one of his best – hints at a player rebuilding himself. But the question lingers: did West Ham fail to develop him, or did he simply plateau at the wrong moment?
Flair Players in a Rigid System
Aside from Academy graduates that night in Rice and Johnson, we also had Benrahma and Fornals – two players who were on the verge of making their mark as flair players.
In Moyes’ system Benrahma was never able to let go and find his form – he played shaky and hidden; his dazzling skills at Brentford came to naught and after a turbulent stint at Lyon, he moved to Neom SC in Saudi Arabia – a league where flair is celebrated and defensive discipline is optional. He remains a player who thrives on freedom, not structure.
Fornals, meanwhile, has been reborn at Real Betis under Manuel Pellegrini. His comments about feeling edged out at West Ham – that the club grew in a direction that no longer included him – were telling. He was the soul of the dressing room, a connector on and off the pitch. Losing him felt like losing something intangible.
The Final Links to Upton Park
Coming to Manuel Lanzini and Antonio – another era before this one – the last two of the final season at Upton Park actually hits a bit harder.
Manuel Lanzini’s cameo at Villa Park was a reminder of his quiet brilliance. He orchestrated the final goal with the calm of a player who saw the game half a second earlier than everyone else. He was never the star of the Moyes era, but he was the glue – the player who made the football feel human. Now back in Argentina with Vélez Sarsfield after leaving River Plate in 2025, Lanzini represents a link to a more romantic version of West Ham – one that feels increasingly distant.
Michail Antonio’s exit was messier. After his 2024 car accident and the physical decline that followed, his move to Al‑Sailiya in Qatar marked the end of an era. Antonio was the embodiment of the club’s rise – raw, relentless, improbable. His departure felt like the final page of a chapter the club didn’t quite know how to close.
A System of the Moment
As I look back on that brilliant win, I’m reminded of a manager who wasn’t using each of these players to their truest ability, but in a system that suited him that happened to work that year alone. If you research scores you’ll see almost the same team losing to Aston Villa two years later in 2023 with the score 4-1 befalling their tragic slide out of grace.
Perhaps the climaxes of the Moyes era weren’t because we were elite or of a system that was profound that it couldn’t be stopped, or that we’ve lost something besides memories.
Perhaps it was that something just clicked with those players in that system at that time, and from what I’ve seen happening under Nuno – with a team that really enjoys each other and is starting to feel a certain rhythm of play – there will be glories we can chase and achieve again, and squads that will break our heart once they leave and dissipate in the everchanging game of Premier League football.
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