Oh dear God, if there is ANY truth in the Telegraph story that we plan to replace Zola with Clarke, then God help us! The story goes that Zola already knows he is on his way out and Clarke will take over ONLY IF WE ARE RELEGATED. Brilliant!
So where is Zola's incentive to keep us up beyond personal pride? Heads he loses if we get relegated and tails he loses even more if we stay up because he goes and his "mate" goes too! If Clarke is still his mate of course.
I blogged months back (I will identify when if you like) that there had been a falling out over tactics. I didn't have any hard evidence, it was based on the way Clarke was clearly distancing himself from Zola. Last season, they were side by side on the touchline, agreeing what should be done mid match; this season, Zola has been a lonely figure during games, looking more and more like Roeder in our relegation season. Clarke stays in the dug out, metaphorically washing his hands of the whole affair. Then there was that "Don't blame Zola, he lacks the experience, blame me" comment made by Clarke. At the time, I identified Clarke as Brutus, knifing his best friend and Caesar in the back.
It was interesting that it was Clarke who stood up to Sullivan and ordered him out of the meeting with the players. Sullivan could have reacted to this in one of two ways. Apoplectic rage or, 'Hang on, who is acting like the manager here? I Like this guy's style'.
Now it is perfectly possible that Clarke has already been offered the job - probably in those meetings after the Stoke game - but declined to do openly to Zola what Redknapp did to Bonds. He may well have counselled Zola to go away and think about things, hoping his mate would jump ship of his own volition, leaving him in charge. The trouble is, Zola didn't jump because Clarke didn't want to be seen to be pushing him. Like Banquo, Clarke wanted, on the surface, to keep his "allegiance clear".
So now we have the nightmare scenario of a lame duck manager who is only doing the job for his own personal reputation and an assistant who WANTS that manager to fail so disastrously that McClaren or Hughes or Curbishley or Bilic won't want the job! If you wanted the perfect recipe for relegation, this is it! Somebody tell Sullivan and Gold that April Fool is only supposed to last one day!
Come On You Crown Of Thorns Irons!
7 comments:
You realise that if we were in top half of the table this blog would be redundant as you'd having nothing to moan about?
I always imagine you in mornings scouring the net for negative reports on West Ham and actually salivating at the prospect of writing more negatives stories.
Is that right Claret? We were in the top half of the table for a lot of last season but this blog wasn't redundant because I was correctly forecasting what was to come! I will have PLENTY to say if we ever do well, believe me. But where, pray, is the good news to report on? I will run a positive article just for you mate! Hang on!
can thalidomides pat themselves on the back?
Ah, moving on from the racism are we? Very clever. Idiot.
Claret have a look at HF's replies to you in the previous blog entry and now re read him at 1102..... he actually believes his own crap!!! and is conceited in the extreme!!! do you think there is any point??
He is like a small child who bangs his head on the floor to get the attention of his mum. Have a look at some of the pictures he chooses to accompany his posts.... there is something very wrong with this disturbed attention seeker!!!
12:59 it's very worrying indeed.... in fact it's enough to make you want to spit feathers!!!!
1259, I am disturbed? Do I go on somebody else's blog every day to rant delight at West Ham losing? Do I post racist and pornographic messages every day? Do I post support for the BNP? You need help mate.
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