As a former centre-back himself, David Moyes was especially pained by the nature of West Ham United’s 3-2 defeat by Premier League rivals Brentford back in November 2023.
And while the 62-year-old Scot never came close to plying his trade at the highest level before hanging up his boots in the late 20th century, much of Moyes success as a manager had been built upon the foundations of a rock-solid backline.
Well, apart from that brief and miserable stint with Sunderland, and the 2023/24 campaign which would prove to be his final one in the West Ham United dugout.
David Moyes blamed the sale of Declan Rice to Arsenal for a dismal defensive record which saw the Hammers concede an all-time worst tally of 74 goals in a single season. And, sure, they were not the same solid, aggressive unit without the captain patrolling the centre of the park with an iron fist.
But even Rice at his ferocious best may have struggled to salvage the sort of calamitous performance West Ham produced in that defeat by Brentford. An afternoon in which Nayef Aguerd and Konstantinos Mavropanos started together, and looked like anything other than a £57 million central defensive partnership.
David Moyes was ‘disgusted’ after Konstantinos Mavropanos’ West Ham United collapse
As Moyes’ Everton prepare to host his old employers at the Hill Dickinson Stadium on Monday night, Aguerd is now a thing of the past. Sold to Marseille for half the fee West Ham paid to bring him to England in the first place.
Mavropanos, though, is very much still around.
And the West Ham fans still reeling from last week’s 2-1 defeat by Crystal Palace may see shades of that calamitous Jean-Philippe Mateta header in the goal which gave Brentford the lead in 2023. While Wayne Rooney watched Max Kilman fail to beat Marc Guehi in the air and Mavropanos leave Mateta free to convert from point-blank range, the big Greek defender was at the heart of another penalty-box melee as Neal Maupay eventually converted.
Again, rather than take charge of a situation, Mavropanos was caught in no-mans land. And, in a desperate attempt to clear Maupay’s effort off the line – a la Mateta’s – both he and the ball ended up beyond the goalline.
Worse was to come.
Mavropanos bizarrely headed the ball in his own net under pressure from Nathan Collins after West Ham had turned the game around via Jarrod Bowen and a stunning Mohammed Kudus scissor kick.
“We’ve not dealt with things which, as a player, I would have been disgusted with myself for not being able to deal with,” Moyes fumed at full-time, a second-half collapse capped by Aguerd leaving Collins unmarked to power home the winner.
“We weren’t talking about anything weird and wonderful.
“We didn’t deal with deliveries into the box. The first goal was Keystone Cops and incredibly poor from our point of view. Brentford are really good at getting balls into the box and we didn’t deal with it at all.”
Mavropanos has a point to prove in Everton trip on Monday night
Ahead of that trip to Merseyside, you could almost copy and paste Moyes’ comments from November 2023 and apply them to any of Graham Potter’s post-match press conferences at the start of 2025/26.
Mavropanos cannot be blamed for those disastrous defeats by Sunderland and Chelsea. But, since returning to the side, the Hammers have still conceded two goals a game on average.
Up against either the spring-heeled Thierno Barry or the physical Beto – Potter highlighted Everton’s number nine as a dangerman pre-match before his sacking – Mavropanos will be desperate to prove that he is not the link between West Ham’s disastrous defensive record under Moyes, and their equally poor record under Potter.
But, with Aguerd a thing of the past and Mavropanos hardly setting the heather aflame under a succession of head coaches, he is running out of excuses.
