New Year Honour recipient David Moyes has called his former players at West Ham “magnificent” and suggested he will not return to a job at the top or bottom of the Premier League.
Moyes won the Conference League with the Hammers in 2023 but has put his 44-year professional career in the game on hold since leaving London Stadium at the end of last season.
“I had a brilliant time at West Ham – great thanks to the people there who helped me get an OBE,” said Moyes, speaking to BBC Sport about his reign of more than five years across two spells.
“The players there were magnificent and winning a trophy there was special. We’ve had some brilliant managers in this league, but not all of them run the course.
“Some of the best managers in the world have not been able to stick it out in the Premier League, for different reasons.”
👏 David Moyes has received an OBE in the King’s New Year Honours list!
“I’m thrilled to be in this position,” he says. pic.twitter.com/1kt2oeU1yH
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) December 30, 2024
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Moyes OBE ‘incredible’
Former Sunderland, Real Sociedad, Manchester United, Everton and Preston North End boss Moyes has followed in the footsteps of his father, David, by being awarded an honour.
“It’s an incredible honour, it really is,” he said. “I don’t think it’s something, when you set out in life, that you expect to be awarded these sorts of things.
“I’m thrilled to be in this position. The first thing I thought about was the journey I’ve been on and the people who’ve helped me, whether it be people recently or right at the start, such as school teachers allowing me to go and train with Celtic one day a week when I was 15 and letting me out of school.
“It’s the insight and belief people have to have in you to achieve things. Behind it all, if I had to give thanks to anyone, it would be to my family and wife for their incredible support. My dad has got an MBE and he’s quite pleased that he’s now got a son who’s got an OBE.”
Congratulations to our former player and manager David Moyes for being awarded an OBE. 💙#pnefc pic.twitter.com/i6sLFF5VyW
— Preston North End FC (@pnefc) December 31, 2024
Moyes not ‘done yet’
Now 61, Moyes experienced one of the most pressurised jobs in football during his brief spell in charge of Manchester United – the most successful team in English top-flight history – as legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s successor in 2013/14.
He steered Preston, Everton and West Ham away from danger after being appointed but suffered relegation at the end of his season with Sunderland in 2016/17.
“I don’t consider myself done yet but I’m certainly enjoying some time off,” said the Scot. “Football’s in my blood, it has been since I was a boy.
“If there’s another part to come, then so be it. I wouldn’t want to come in to something that is very, very difficult.
“It’s very, very difficult, probably, to be a top team, [and] I don’t want to be at the bottom of the relegation and fighting relegation, which I’ve had a few times.”
