DESPERATE times call for desperate measures. And if you’re really, really desperate, you call for David Moyes.

How on earth has Moyes managed to land another plum job in the Premier League after his disastrous spell in charge of Sunderland last season? At a time when young British managers are being constantly overlooked for a top-flight position, old stagers such as Moyes continue to be offered a succession of managerial lives. Yet if West Ham think they are taking the ‘safe option’ with the 54-year-old, they could quickly find themselves regretting their decision.

Sunderland’s rulers thought that too when they appointed Moyes to succeed Sam Allardyce in the summer of 2016 despite his previous failures at Manchester United and Real Sociedad. To be fair to the Scotsman, he inherited a mess. When he left ten months later though, he bequeathed a situation that was a whole lot worse.

Sunderland needed a lift after Allardyce hastily departed to take charge of England; with Moyes, they found themselves enveloped by a mood of misery. Two games into his reign, he was asked what he thought of Sunderland supporters fearing a relegation battle. “They’d probably be right,” he replied, with a morose expression. “That’s where they’ve been every other year for the last four years, so why would it suddenly change?”

The tone was set from day one, and with West Ham in need of a jolt of their own given their current position in the bottom three, it is hard to imagine a less inspiring choice of manager at the London Stadium. Perhaps Moyes will really push the boat out this time and target a finishing spot of fourth from bottom.

West Ham fans should certainly be fearful of January if Moyes’ record on Wearside is anything to go by. Finances were tight last summer, but he still managed to break Sunderland’s transfer record to sign Didier Ndong and waste £8m on Papy Djilobodji. The loan signing of Adnan Januzaj was a disaster, and Moyes mistakenly felt he could rely on those he had worked with in the past. In came Paddy McNair, Darron Gibson, Donald Love, Steven Pienaar, Bryan Oviedo, Joleon Lescott and Victor Anichebe. Out of the Premier League went the Black Cats.

Perhaps David Gold and David Sullivan are looking at Moyes’ time at Everton and hoping he can engineer the same gradual improvement at the London Stadium that he oversaw at Goodison Park. Moyes’ Everton side was supremely well-drilled and well-organised, but there was no sign of that during his time at the Stadium of Light. Formations were chopped and changed, players were dropped and recalled, but performance levels remained the same with Sunderland winning just eight of their 43 games on Moyes’ watch.

Things reached their nadir towards the end of the season when Moyes was caught on camera threatening to “slap” a female BBC reporter. He apologised, but came across as a managerial dinosaur on his way to extinction.

Instead, he finds himself back in the top-flight with the hopes of one of London’s biggest clubs in his hands. The West Ham board clearly think they have seen something in him. Presumably, they weren’t looking towards Wearside when they made that assessment.