Football can be an unforgiving and fickle beast. One minute you are lifting the Premier League trophy, the next you are unemployed. This season, we at West Ham have already been the victim of just how fickle football can be. A certain French midfielder (sorry but can’t quite remember his name) was signing a lucrative new contract with a loyalty bonus and the next thing we knew was refusing to play and on a plane back to the South of France.
As a supporter I can feel a debate is brewing, a debate 12 months ago, we never ever thought we would be having – Should Slaven Bilic go or should he stay?
Unfortunately, it is inevitable that when things go wrong at a football club it is usually the manager who is in the firing line. Justified or not, this is the way of the footballing world.
Firstly, we should not forget what Bilic has done for our club since he became our manager. He delivered us one of the best top flight seasons we have had in a long time. He replaced a man whose style of football – if you can call it style – was not the football I had been accustomed to watching at West Ham and who it seemed was obsessed with getting 40 points and then going on holiday. Bilic gave us the perfect send off to Upton Park and returned the passion and pride which Big Sam simply couldn’t give. In our wildest dreams, we could have never imagined we would win away at Arsenal, Liverpool & Man City. We had a good cup run and finished a creditable 7th position in the Premier League. It seemed that he got 100% of decisions correct and he could do no wrong. So, what has gone wrong this season? Why is the questioning of his managerial ability even happening?
Let’s not look through rose tinted glasses, this season hasn’t exactly been an easy one, has it? The poor transfers in the summer, injuries to key players, being knocked out in Europe in the qualifiers (again), poor early league performances, having a worse defence than Jack the Ripper, players not performing, trouble with the new stadium, trouble in the stadium, a Frenchman going on strike and worse of all being able to buy popcorn at half time, have all added to a very troubled season. Now granted some of these Bilic has no control over but some of them he does.
We must assume that he has the final say on transfers, and if this is the case, his judgement on players must be questioned. Only a couple of the summer signings have looked like good signings. Possibly they were squad signings because he was anticipating staying in Europe, but as we have all learnt, people who believe we will stay in Europe are quite sharply bitten on the backside.
The combination of injuries to our key players and the poor signings meant that the team performances at the start of the season were in a word awful. The defence had more holes in it than a packet of polos and the players all looked unfit. Again, Bilic has to take responsibility for this, I’m afraid the buck does stop with him.
I also think that some tactical strategies should have been put in place quicker to help us get used to playing on such a big pitch. Some players have been totally out of their depth on this big pitch (especially our captain) and it is Bilic and his backroom staff’s job to sort these issues out.
Now here is the one question I believe most of us are asking – Why does he keep playing players out of position? I’ve always been a firm believer that you should play players in positions they are comfortable with. At the moment, it seems that Bilic is playing players out of position because he wants them in his first team but does not want to drop others. This cannot be a healthy situation for the club. A manager needs to be strong enough to make decisions that may upset players but are for the good of the club, these skills he seems to have lost for the time being, which is a shame. Despite his comments earlier this week, we can all see Noble is completely out of form, Bilic needs to drop him and move Kouyate into the midfield. Tactically, Bilic has been found wanting.
Personally, I think that Bilic should be given a chance and given time, however, I just get the feeling that the Chairmen may feel otherwise.