West Ham United entertain Leicester City on Saturday but is their boss Brendan Rodgers in the wrong dugout?
Rodgers made the shock decision to quit Celtic for the Foxes back in February.
There have been many interested observers as he has quickly settled back into Premier League life.
And two of them are sat in the West Ham boardroom.
It was no secret that co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold were considering a move for Rodgers before appointing Manuel Pellegrini last summer.
West Ham have enjoyed a comfortable if unspectacular season under the Chilean.
Underwhelming debut season for Pellegrini
More was expected given Pellegrini’s CV and the club’s unprecedented £100million outlay on transfers.
In mitigation the Hammers have been nursing the Premier League’s worst injury list all season long.
But a disappointing Carabao Cup surrender to tired Tottenham and a dismal FA Cup exit at the hands of potentially League Two bound AFC Wimbledon left a bitter taste in the mouths of supporters.
Throw in the Marko Arnautovic saga for good measure and it has been a typical season at West Ham – when the aim of the big splurge was quite the opposite.
One major positive has been that Pellegrini has given youth a chance.
‘West Ham wanted Rodgers’
In that sense he and Rodgers are cut from the same cloth.
Should Rodgers be the man leading the Hammers out, though?
A host of reports last summer were linking West Ham with a move for the former Liverpool boss (West Ham World).
Even talkSPORT presenter and Celtic man Alan Brazil was afraid West Ham were going to snatch him away (Sunday Post).
With the Hammers production line in its best shape for nearly two decades Rodgers could have been the perfect appointment.
His brand of football would have been in keeping with West Ham’s traditions.
And he has proved in the past he can spend money wisely too.
Will West Ham regret wrong turn at crossroads?
While it is highly unlikely, West Ham could yet sneak into seventh place and a possible Europa League spot.
Their season could just as easily unravel with the likes of 14th placed Burnley just three points behind the East Londoners.
It would be unreasonable to use the outcome of Saturday’s match as some sort of barometer as to whether West Ham made a mistake not pushing harder for Rodgers.
Next season could be a different story, though, particularly as the Hammers and Leicester will be shopping for the same level of player in the summer market.
West Ham as a club were at a crossroads last summer. They plumped for Pellegrini and he could yet turn out to be yesterday’s man.
Rodgers could feasibly built something from the ground up and been West Ham’s manager for the next five or six years.
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