But while another of that window\u2019s signings, Stuart Downing, would be a man revived once Allardyce switched to a diamond formation, an old-school, chalk-booted winger like Matt Jarvis found that new system to be his downfall.<\/p>\n
Former England international Jarvis produced the most accurate crosses of any player in Europe\u2019s top five leagues during his final season at Wolves and also his first with West Ham United<\/a>. He would start only four Premier League matches in the 2014\/15 campaign, though, once Allardyce shifted formations, went away from wingers, and re-packaged Downing as a roving number ten.<\/p>\n Jarvis reflects fondly on his time with Allardyce<\/a>, as well as with his successor Slaven Bilic<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, once it became clear that Bilic was sticking with \u2018Big Sam\u2019s\u2019 formation, all the while bringing two natural-born attacking midfielders to the club in Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini, Jarvis knew that the writing was on the wall.<\/p>\n Jarvis would end up joining Norwich City for a cut-price fee of \u00a32.5 million, after joining the Canaries on an initial loan deal in 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Sam, he sort of broke it down so you knew what you had to do, your role in the team. Slaven, I only played a short spell with but, again, I really enjoyed his training sessions,\u201d Jarvis says. \u201cI really enjoyed his methods and I liked him as a person. <\/p>\n \u201cThe only reason that I left was because Sam had changed the system in the previous year. He decided not to play with wingers. He went with a diamond in midfield, so I didn\u2019t feature as much as I wanted.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t ever going to be one of those players who would sit there and not play, and pick up whatever [in terms of wages]. I wanted to play. I couldn\u2019t think of anything worse than training and not being able to play on the weekend. <\/p>\n \u201cDo I regret it? No, not at all. Everything happens for a reason. I went because I wanted to go and play some football. That is the opportunity I got with Norwich.\u201d<\/p>\n Jarvis pinpoints the signings of Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini<\/p>\n Jarvis did find the time to play five European matches before moving to Carrow Road on deadline day. He even produced a pair of assists during the 4-0 aggregate victory over Andorran outfit FC Lusitanos in the Europa League qualifiers. <\/p>\n \u201cI really enjoyed Slaven,\u201d adds Jarvis, who was starting to slip down the pecking order by the time that infamous play-off defeat by Astra Giurgiu rolled around. \u201cI played all the Europa League games throughout the summer, the qualifying, and it was fantastic. <\/p>\n \u201cI was thinking, \u2018well, next season I will try and break in\u2019, because you never know what is going to happen. <\/p>\n \u2018We were going through a spell when we weren\u2019t winning and I was thinking, \u2018[Allardyce] could try and change the formation again and I could be back in. When Slaven came in, I didn\u2019t really have any intention to leave at that point. <\/p>\n \u201cI was playing in all the Europa League games, and I actually featured in every single game at the start of the season. But I didn\u2019t start any [games]. I played the last half hour, 25 minutes. <\/p>\n \u201cAt that point, they had signed Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini.\u201d<\/p>\n Slaven Bilic wanted the former England ace to stay at West Ham<\/p>\n Jarvis admits that Bilic had hoped to keep him in East London. However, the player himself was not quite so keen on the idea of continuing his streak of cameo appearances off the substitute\u2019s bench.<\/p>\n \u201cSlaven didn\u2019t want me to go. We had a very good relationship. He was like, \u2018I don\u2019t want you to go but I can understand. I can\u2019t tell you you are going to start every game, but you have featured in every single game\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cJust, in the back of my mind [I knew I had to go]. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was two hours before the window closed, I got the call. It was quite last-minute. I had that lingering thought where I didn\u2019t like not playing and I couldn\u2019t sit on the bench and play a bit-part [role]. <\/p>\n \u201cI just wanted to play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just like this summer, when West Ham United replaced the likes of Emerson Palmieri and Michail Antonio with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,126903,126904,574,126905,126906,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-278080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-dimitri-payet","11":"tag-matt-jarvis","12":"tag-premier-league","13":"tag-sam-allardyce","14":"tag-slaven-bilic","15":"tag-soccer","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-525911946-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo by AMA\/Corbis via Getty ImagesMatt Jarvis explains why he left West Ham United for Norwich City<\/p>\n