David Moyes will never be revered at West Ham like he is at Everton. But he should be. His reign there IS a success story, writes IAN LADYMAN

A friend of mine has a lovely picture as the screensaver on his laptop. It’s a photo taken from the centre circle of West Ham players celebrating their Europa Conference League success in front of a throng of supporters in Prague last spring.

I am not a huge fan of the competition but that doesn’t really matter. That night – that journey, that trophy – meant the world to West Ham. In terms of their manager David Moyes, meanwhile, it represents a career highlight.

So why the rancour and the bitterness now? Why the talk of betrayal? Why the anger?

Moyes will leave West Ham at the end of this season and that feels about right, for him and the club. All sporting relationships have a natural timespan. All unions reach a point where they serve nobody. And that is where West Ham and Moyes are right now. It’s called the end of the road and should not be confused with failure.

The truth is that West Ham and Moyes represent a modern sporting success story at a time when it’s increasingly difficult for clubs below the very top level to make them happen. This is the way it should be viewed and celebrated.

West Ham are an established and aspirational Premier League club. The Moyes era has underwritten all that. His team played well in Europe once again this season. Their stadium out in Stratford is full every week and we no longer have to listen to people say how bad it is, how unsuitable it is for atmosphere. The reason is not that anything has changed at the London Stadium only that there has actually been some football to talk about instead.

It has not all been perfect. Supporters would like to have seen a team playing on the front foot more often. They would have liked to have seen a few more risks. 

Equally, they have been able to watch talents such as Jarrod Bowen grow before their eyes. This season, at least early on, the talk was of their summer signing Mohammed Kudus.

But Moyes’ second spell at West Ham has been progressive and that is what football is about. It’s about moving forwards. That the 61-year-old has been at the helm of this for three-and-a-half years is testimony to a man’s desire to work and to a willingness to show himself and indeed the football world that his lean spells at Manchester United, Real Sociedad and Sunderland were not to define him.

I witnessed Moyes’ struggles at United from close quarters. I was covering the club at the time. I was there for a pre-season tour in Thailand, Australia and Japan. I was at his first game and, not terribly long after, his last. He was not cut out for that job. It was too big for him. A horrible cliché but also desperately true.

Beyond that, his time trying to find a way to come again in Spain and then on Wearside was peculiarly unproductive. In truth, he looked ruined by what had happened at Old Trafford. It was as though something vital had been taken from him, never to be returned.

But Moyes was not to be that man. He was not to be that type beaten and driven away by this most brutal of sporting professions. Moyes can sometimes be a little thin-skinned, not always able to brush off criticism as easily as others can or indeed as he would wish. 

But that doesn’t mean a layer of steel does not run through him and it has been this, allied with a yearning to coach and be involved in the game, that has driven himself back to a place where he can once be again be recognised as one of the finest the British game has recently produced.

Doubtless Moyes will wish to come again and work again now. He has earned that right and there seems to be no dampening of the desire. I still regard his years at Everton as his finest. Talent identification, management of people, coaching. He ticked all the boxes back then.

He will perhaps never be regarded in east London as he is on Merseyside. But he should be. Moyes and West Ham grew together, returned to eminence together, won together. That is what sporting success looks like when you aren’t Manchester City or Liverpool.

I don’t know much about the manner of his leaving. From the outside it looks as though it could have been handled better. 

But in football it’s always right to leave before not a single person left in the building can stand the sight of you anymore. And for David Moyes that time is now.

Nunez owes an apology 

Regular readers of this page will know of my fondness for Darwin Nunez. Somewhere beneath the long hair, the tattoos and that turbo-charged road runner sprinting style, there is a really good footballer trying to get out. Or so I keep telling myself.

Nunez blotted his copybook this week, though. His departure from the field after Liverpool’s win against Tottenham carried the look of a toddler strop while his subsequent decision to remove all Liverpool references from his social media feeds was all a bit teenage.

And it’s a shame because if Nunez were to look at his contribution to Liverpool’s cause in Jurgen Klopp’s final season, he will soon come across endless chances missed and more offside violations than any player I can remember. In short, had Nunez been a little more switched on when it mattered Liverpool may still be in with a chance of winning the Premier League.

Nunez owes Klopp a thank you for giving him his chance at one of the world’s biggest clubs. And while he’s at it, he may also like to say sorry.

Ten Hag can’t even get the basics right

Of all Erik ten Hag’s struggles this season, what has surprised me most has been his basic failings as a coach.

Ten Hag was recruited by Manchester United on the back of his clever work at Ajax but recently there has been so sign of it.

Were someone like Jose Mourinho, for example, to be in charge for Sunday’s Arsenal game at Old Trafford, I would have some confidence of a plan to at least stifle, frustrate and irritate a superior team. All top coaches should be capable of bespoke tactical arrangements.

Ten Hag? I just see no sign of it and as such expect his players to tumble on to the field this weekend once more like dice thrown from a tumbler.

Why invite the Invincibles?

Arsenal plan to invite Arsene Wenger and his team of 2004 Invincibles to the Emirates for the final Premier League game of the season. 

Why? In all likelihood, there will still be a title up for grabs. It should be a day of work, not a party.

Sacking Rosenior could spell trouble 

Speaking of his time at Birmingham, Wayne Rooney revealed his use of full-backs had been inspired by what Pep Guardiola does at Manchester City.

Rooney was sacked after three months and I thought of this when listening to the rather too smug Hull City owner Acun Ilicali explain why he had binned his own manager Liam Rosenior this week.

‘There is a football style we want to see on the pitch,’ said Ilicali.

Rosenior is a good coach who did a super job as Hull narrowly missed the Championship play-off spots. His dismissal has left Hull supporters rather bereft.

But the landscape of bravery, intelligence and left-field thinking created by Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and others at the top of our game continues to distort the expectations of those further down the food chain.

Everybody now wants a centre half who can play in midfield. And that’s okay. To marry beauty with progress is perhaps every football club’s dream. But if you get those two things in the wrong order, you are in trouble.