David Moyes has revealed that he tried to sign Manchester United midfielder Scott McTominay as Declan Rice’s replacement at West Ham.
Rice completed a £105million move to Arsenal last summer, leaving West Ham with a lot of money to fill the void.
The Hammers signed James Ward-Prowse and Edson Alvarez but Moyes, who was West Ham manager at the time, says the Hammers also had ‘big interest’ in McTominay.
“Lots of managers have hard luck stories about players that get away and McTominay is one of those for me because I tried to sign him for West Ham last summer,” Moyes told BBC Sport.
“It was always going to be hard to replace Declan Rice with any one player when he joined Arsenal, and we were not planning to do that – we wanted to bring in a couple of midfielders instead.
“We bought two really good players in James Ward-Prowse and Edson Alvarez, so that was the cover, but Scott was certainly one of the players we had a big interest in as well.
“He is a good all-round midfielder, but to me his best attributes are arriving in the area, or the edges of it, at the right time to score or make some chances.
“McTominay was a player who I felt I needed at the time, but we didn’t quite get it over the line and he went on to score a lot of big goals for Manchester United last season instead.”
Ultimately, West Ham couldn’t get the deal over the line and McTominay went on to have a positive season for the Reds by scoring multiple important goals.
Moreover, Moyes was dismissed at the end of the season and replaced by Julen Lopetegui.
McTominay is key for Scotland
The midfielder-forward hybrid is currently in Germany competing for Scotland at Euro 2024. His goal against Switzerland during the week kept their hopes of reaching the knockout rounds alive.
Scotland must beat Hungary on Sunday night if they are to have any chance of reaching the next round.
When asked about McTominay’s role against Hungary, Moyes added: “Get him in the Hungary box. That has to happen as much as possible if Scotland are going to get the result they need in their last game in Group A.
“In the past couple of years, the Manchester United man has been really important to Scotland because he can play in several different roles.
“It was not too long ago that McTominay was as used as centre-half under Steve Clarke for a period but, more recently, he has played higher up the pitch – which is where I feel you get the best out of him.
“When I watch him, it is his goals that stand out. He has got plenty of them for club and country in big games in the past few months, so many that it makes me think that he might end up being Scotland’s top scorer.
“At the moment that is definitely the part of his game that we need the most.
“Scotland have not really offered much of a threat so far at Euro 2024 and McTominay gives us the best chance of doing that on Sunday, in a game we probably need to win to reach the last 16.”
