West Ham United manager David Moyes has faced uncertainty over his job throughout the season. With the Hammers in a deep relegation battle, bookmakers and pundits have tipped him to be sacked soon.
Two coaches have already been considered firm favourites by fans to take over. Self-confessed West Ham fan Will Still and former Hammer Michael Carrick are already seen as frontrunners, and both have turned around the fortunes of their respective clubs.
Still infamously guided Reims to a 19-game unbeaten run, while Carrick has transformed Middlesborough into serious promotion contenders.
Gerardo Seaone is a relatively unknown name that should be in the mix. The 44-year-old has shown that he can improve a team in a short space of time, using traditional managerial techniques and putting trust in youth players – something West Ham was known for.
He has been out of work for five months and the club would be making a smart move to give him a return to the sidelines.
BACKGROUND
Gerardo Seaone was born in Switzerland to Spanish parents. He spent his playing career in Switzerland and Spain, and he represented Switzerland at U21 level.
He became the manage of Luzern’s academy in 2014 and stayed with the club for four years. Seaone was promoted to first-team manager in January 2018, winning ten games in five months. The quick turnaround of the team’s form led to him being appointed the manager of Young Boys in June that same year. He won three consecutive league titles with the team.
After three seasons with them, Seaone moved to Germany to manage Bayer Leverkusen. His first season in the Bundesliga was very good – Leverkusen finished third, lost eight games all season and topped their Europa League group.
Seaone attempted to improve the team ahead of the 2022/23 season by signing Adam Hlozek and Callum Hudson-Odoi, but the previous season’s form could not be built upon. One win from the opening eight games saw Seaone sacked, with Xabi Alonso replacing him.
Even though his time at Leverkusen was cut short, Seaone has every reason to hold his head high. He had invested a lot of time into the projects Young Boys and Leverkusen had to offer, and he tried to use his own coaching style to improve both clubs in the long term. By showing a willing to change, combined with older coaching methods, Seaone has emerged as a young manager with a lot of potential.
HOW CAN SEAONE IMPROVE WEST HAM?
When Seaone first started managing Luzern, he noticed that the youth team was underperforming due to a lack of time invested in the academy. He often attended youth games and began to give teenage players a chance in the first-team. Moreover, he has a strong understanding of a youth team’s infrastructure, given that he used to manage Luzern’s academy. He could implement this at West Ham with players such as Divin Mubama and Ollie Scarles, gradually giving them more time in Premier League games.
Like Moyes, Seaone uses a 4-2-3-1 system for the most part. However, the main difference between Moyes and Seaone is that the latter uses the formation to attack in heavy numbers. He keeps three players running in line with the ball, with an extra attacker positioned behind to sprint towards the box.
This allows fast-paced, well-executed movement. Defensively, he asks off-the-ball players to press aggressively; he sometimes asks his central midfielders to revert to a defensive role. Seaone also likes his midfielders to drop into deeper positions in their own half when they do not have the ball.
The results of Seaone’s strong attacks were immediate, as Leverkusen scored 15 goals in the opening five games of the 2021/22 season. This made the players more productive – and productivity is lacking in the West Ham team. Seaone would subsequently force players such as Jarrod Bowen and Michail Antonio to step up and be more involved in the flow of the game.
Seaone’s name is not well-known outside of Switzerland and Germany, but he is showing a strong ability to make teams attractive and fun to watch. If West Ham really wants to get some meaning to its football and wishes to score more goals, the club should look to hire this Swiss manager before another club comes for him.