KIERAN GILL: David Moyes has turned into Football’s Harry Houdini escaping trouble once AGAIN

You could have strapped David Moyes in a straitjacket, locked him in a wooden crate and tossed him in the River Thames behind Craven Cottage. But it would have been a waste of time.

You would only have been liable to see a soggy Scotsman wringing out his West Ham tracksuit not long later because, like it or not, Moyes has turned into football’s Harry Houdini this season.

However dire the situation seems, Moyes escapes unshackled and unharmed. First there was Everton — or ‘El Sackico’ as this newspaper coined it — and a 2-0 win. Then there was Nottingham Forest and a 4-0 win. Then Southampton and a 1-0 win.

Fulham was another one of those games in which Moyes knew he could not lose, for the sake of his job. West Ham won, buying the 59-year-old manager more time.

Co-owner David Sullivan was at Craven Cottage to witness a scruffy win settled by an own goal midway through the first half from Harrison Reed. Not that Moyes cared how they won, so long as they did.

Irons fans shouted at Moyes ‘You don’t know what you’re doing’ at Craven Cottage on Saturday

But West Ham won, in scruffy circumstances, but Moyes will not care about how they won

The away supporters did care, however. They sang: ‘You don’t know what you’re doing’ when Moyes replaced Danny Ings with Flynn Downes — a striker off for a midfielder — after an hour in a bid to hold on to their 1-0 lead. They unfurled a ‘Moyes Out’ banner at full time in spite of the win.

Moyes walked past the away section at the end of the game. He looked in their direction but did not applaud. Some supporters complained about that, but given the abuse, you can see why he avoided them. Few managers would want to thank the fans calling them clueless.

Moyes defended his tactics afterwards, saying this is the way you must play when you are struggling in the Premier League.

The players are still with him, as Declan Rice said after this win. ‘One hundred per cent,’ said the club captain. ‘It shows everything what we think about David Moyes. Every time there has been a lot of noise around his job, we have stepped up and won the game.

‘There are no questions to ask over whether we are fighting for the manager or not. If you saw us here, that was a team that would do anything to win a game for this manager.

‘No one wants to be playing in the Championship. No one wants to be going down, especially with the squad we’ve got. We’ve slipped below our standards this year. To win and to do it for each other, the club, the staff, everyone involved, it’s just so big. To now have this type of season again, we’ve had to show a lot of character. It’s not over yet.’

For Fulham, they are in a rut, losing their last five matches in all competitions. They struggle without Aleksandar Mitrovic, the striker who is suspended for the foreseeable future. Marco Silva’s side produced 47 crosses — the third-most of any Premier League team this season — but without Mitrovic, there was no one to find in the box.

Harrison Reed’s own goal may keep Moyes in a job and help West Ham avoid relegation 

Marco Silva’s side are dropping down the table after losing their last four league matches

Eventually it was a surprise punch to the gut which spelled the end for the masterful escape artist Houdini.

West Ham are favourites to win the Europa Conference League, which would turn this into a season to remember, rather than one to forget.

Moyes, who is looking to take West Ham to a second European semi-final in a row, can only hope that Belgian league leaders Gent do not deliver that sucker punch this week in the last eight.

But it would take something extraordinary for the club to change managers now before the end of the season.