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da bet7： After just three games of the new Premier League season, Slaven Bilic’s fate as West Ham manager appears to be balancing on a knife-edge. In fact, The TelegraphÂbelieve the Hammers gaffer has just a few games left to save his job with the Irons currently bottom of the table, yet to claim a single point and accompanied by an incredibly unflattering goal difference.But has Bilic passed the point of no return? Does he deserve more time to turn it around? Is the uncertainty surrounding his future little more than a knee-jerk reaction to an underwhelming start to the season? FootballFanCast are laying out the arguments for and against handing Bilic his P45, and then letting you decide what his fate should be.
Time to go – Chris McMullan
There is, no doubt, enough blame to share around. No-one should get away with it easily. There’s blame for the board, blame for the players and yes, blame for the manager.
It shouldn’t be blame for just one thing, either. There’s both a terrible transfer window, an unprepared squad and a catastrophic start to the season to be accounted for here. It can’t all be laid at Bilic’s door, but then what else can realistically be done?
For a start, if the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over in the hope of a different result, there is at least evidence to suggest that the Hammers board has changed tack this summer. This time last year, the squad was filled with the sorts of new arrivals that only charitably bring the phrase ‘quantity over quality’ to mind. This year, things were at least different, as big name signings came to the London Stadium. Even if a much-needed central midfielder eluded them this window, they’ve tried in other areas. There could well be repercussions for the failures, but we still don’t know who’s fault they are.
Then again, there is also a sense that history is somehow repeating. When Sam Allardyce left West Ham he wasn’t sacked. His contract simply wasn’t renewed. Yet if that sounds like the kind of mutually beneficial sanity that escapes most trigger happy football clubs these days, it shouldn’t. Allardyce wasn’t renewed because it would have cost money to sack him.
Bilic is in a strikingly similar position this year. His contract runs out at the end of the season and it’s looking like he won’t be renewed either. Worse still, the situation looks like it will reach some sort of a climax before the summer, because at the moment, with the politics, the infighting and the leaked details around transfer failures and the terrible results on the pitch, Bilic will either have to be sacked or walk. And at the moment, from the outside looking in, it’s starting to look like the board are attempting to make him walk rather than pay him off.
If that’s the case, then come on lads: just get rid now. Stop these stupid power games and sack the manager like every other football club’s board of directors would. It’s sad that a man like Bilic would have to leave under such a cloud, but the stand-off helps no-one, and as much as some Hammers fans might like to see it, the board won’t sack themselves. So it’s Bilic who has to get it.
It’s time to wield the axe, bring in someone new, and at least try to avoid relegation at some point before Christmas. By which time it could well have become a genuine threat again.
Have more faith – Christy Malyan
Yes, West Ham’s performances this season have ranged from anonymous to abysmal. Yes, there are many similarities to the Hammers’ erroneous first half of 2016/17. Yes, the Irons often appear to lack the most basic of organisation and have resultantly developed a disturbing knack of conceding the softest and simplest of goals. Whether that’s a consequence of tactics, team selections, training methods, pre-season preparations or all four, responsibility inevitably rests with the manager.
Yet, if you ever needed evidence of English football’s relentlessly increasing short-termism, this is surely it – debates over whether a manager who finished the season previous in eleventh place and the season prior to that in seventh, both with a largely unspectacular team whilst moving to a new stadium, should be sacked just three games into the new campaign.
Three away games, I might add, against a Manchester United side who look set to obliterate everything in their path this term, an ever-solid Southampton outfit who boasted a man advantage for the best part of an hour and a Newcastle team situated in a region West Ham rarely take points back to London from, regardless of who is in charge.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s no guarantee things would have been drastically different if all of those matches had taken place at the London Stadium. But there are still 35 Premier League fixtures to go and even in the space of another three games, West Ham’s season could look wholly different if they take something near maximum points against Huddersfield, West Brom and Tottenham.
Likewise, although Bilic has been left with much better tools to work with than last season following a summer which saw the board make four proven signings for the starting XI rather than the fringes of the squad, that is a challenge in itself. Bilic’s essentially being asked to instantaneously produce results while changing over a third of his usual team. It’s inevitable a few eggs will be broken.
Once again, many of the concerns vastly pre-date the first three games of the current campaign. But Bilic’s had so much to deal with during his time as West Ham manager; the move to the London Stadium, the horrendous transfer window of summer 2016, Dimitri Payet’s mid-season walk-out; it would be unjustifiable to lay all of those problems on his doorstep alone.
Furthermore, the phrase ‘the better the devil you know’ instantly comes to mind. Are there more talented managers out there than Bilic? Most certainly. But are there more talented managers with such a historic and emotional connection to the club, who understand the Irons’ unique, idiosyncratic, turbulent and often demanding fan-base? The board will be hard-pressed to find one.
There is little place for anything but the bottom line in football these days. But amid one of the most unpredictable eras of West Ham’s history, in which they hope the London Stadium can move them to a higher level but will undoubtedly create many debasing problems along the way, a true steward of Bilic’s description can be invaluable.
Of course, results are results and Bilic must face the music if they’re not good enough. But before the Irons dispose of a manager who can act as both the balancing act and the lightening rod amid a period of uncertainty, it’s worth giving him a fair crack of the whip. Show some faith and let Bilic determine his own fate.
So West Ham fans, should he stay or should he go?