Critics of Grant are saying there's no time to delay now but they are missing the point. We are where we are now because the Davids dawdled back in January. It was obvious then that Zola was clueless, that the good ship West Ham was pitching in the perfect storm with an idiot at the helm.
Anybody who witnessed our performances away to Burnley, Liverpool, Man Utd, Tottenham, Chelsea, Bolton and Fulham last season must understand how bad we were under Zola. Yes, we were just as poor at Villa and at Liverpool this season under Grant, but other than that, we have at least competed in games away from Upton Park. Anybody unfortunate enough to have paid full price to see us play Blackburn, Stoke, Wolves and Bolton must have realised we were a team of dead men walking under the Italian. We have lost at home to Newcastle, Bolton, Chelsea and Man City, but we didn't look anywhere near as bad in those games as we did last season against Wolves!
But the fans backed Zola. In Zola, these fools trusted. And five crucial months were wasted as the team floundered like a drowning whale. Sadly G&S kept their harpoon under wraps, reluctant to put the lame Leviathan out of its misery because they dared not risk the ire of the already hostile fans. As Public Enemy Number One and Two, the last thing they could afford at that stage was to deprive the baying mob of their smiling pet of a manager.
And in those five wasted months, the wounds festered. Had we recruited Pardew last January, we would have pulled clear of relegation and positioned ourselves for a new push this season. Had we recruited Grant, the ship would have been steadied ready for cruising into calmer waters this season. But we did neither, we left the floundering beast to roll in agony, to lose hope, to drift aimlessly, to yearn to die.
And then we recruited the undertaker! Well when somebody has been murdered, you don't hold the guy burying the corpse responsible for the death!
17 comments:
I don't care if Grant inherited a crap squad or if he's better or worse than Zola or even if G&S are to blame for not sacking Zola sooner.
We can't change the past we can only learn from it.
What I care about is avoiding relegation and it's quite clear now that Grant is not helping us to achieve this.
Zola was crap and should have been sacked sooner.
Grant is equally as crap and should be sacked now.
And if the next manager makes no difference? Then £4million is wasted, £4million the club can't afford to give away. That's half the fee Tottenham will pay for Parker in January! Does that make sense? Zola left a pile of shit behind. What evidence do you have that ANYBODY could get this team of dispirited misfits winning?
So HF, your answer is to give up and accept relegation??? No thanks.
Relegation will cost us far more than £4m so anything is worth a punt at this stage. Starting with a new manager.
Oh and Parker definitely won't be sold in January.
More likely that he'll go in the summer, even in the very unlikely event that we stay.
According to the BBC, Grant has to get at least one win from the next three games to keep his job.
If it costs £4m to get rid of Grant then it is worth it. It will cost upwards of £60m if we go down. Sell Winston Reid for £2m and Kovac/Spector for £2m to balance the books
Simples
I've given up on it all mate. What will be will be......
Only you HF can make such an argument that our extremely poor showing this year in not the fault of this year's manager but, wait for it, last year's manager!
What bullshit! Zola was very bad in persisting to select players that should not have been in the team. But in every other respect, althouh great by any means, was much better than Grant. He could motivate the players and also got to play attacking football.
But I can't believe we sit here discussing who was worse, Zola or Grant, when it should obvious to everyone by now that stand any chance of saving ourselves we should sack AG immediately. For some reason, which I honestly don't understand you think that we are doomed whatever we do and you profess saving our money! This is truly unbelievable! Make be I could swallaw it if it was at the end of the year with 3-4 to go and we were lying 5-6 points behind everyone. But 5-6 months before the end of the year, with the January window opening up and only 4 points away from safety it is unthinkable how any true fan of West Ham can think this way! Unless you are trying to provoke the rest of the fans!
Spector, Reid and Kovac will do a good job in the Championship!
Sav you are ignoring all the facts I'm afraid. Your faith is blind and desperate. Teams with 12 points at this stage of the season do not survive. We will need a MINIMUM of 40 points to stay up this season, that's another 28 points from 21 games. That's 8 wins and 4 draws. Find me eight wins! Wolves, Birmingham, Blackburn, Sunderland, Villa, Stoke at home. That's six if we take everything we can! So we now need two wins AWAY from home! Hmmmm. Fulham? Wigan? Blackpool? West Brom? Blackburn? Two of those four. There's our eight wins. Not much margin of error is there? Lets turn three of those into draws shall we? We still need a home draw. Liverpool? Everton? Arsenal? Man Utd? Or an away draw at Newcastle, Everton, Tottenham, Chelsea, Man City or Bolton? What are the chances of that?
It's possible but is it probable? Chance in ten thousand! That's why we have to start PLANNING for the probable!
SAV wake up from your dreams zola motivated one player, cole, now if we played such good attacking football why did we stay up by the skin of our teeth last year and average goals per game is about the same. Stop saying zolas a better manager as we never looked like winning any games last year and deserved to lose all of the games we lost at least this year the players dont give up against every team whereas this year you can only say they didnt try against liverpool and how many times have we been thrashed this year judged on possesion goals and shots.
The report in Goal.co.uk said that there was a buyout clause in Grants deal. I think I actually believe that. Grant really didn't have other suitors, and I can't imaging G&S would have given a relegated manager a 4 year contract without one. I could be wrong, but it seems to be logical. Thus sacking him may not cost us as much as you fear, HF.
fanno this is your weakest argument to date, appalling!
kevin in manchester writes..
it is a simple question are sam, chris H, anyone else likely to come, a better manager than grant?
yes, in sam's case and chris H has form in handling a team in crisis- so biff grant.
I agree HF we are playing better in defeat and in draws than last season but the table does not lie- a manager who has guided a team in rock bottom for 30-odd games is not unlucky.. he's not up to the job.
I remember reading an israeli correspondent on one of the other (less quality, of course!) websites saying we would regret appointing him, His view was grant was conservative, lacked imagination and owed his position to extremely good personal skills in cosying up to the rich and powerful - not really in a position to know the truth but it's a thought!
Out of all the managers since Rednapp, only Pardew did OK. And he couldn't sustain it either. The fact is the "West ham way" hasn't been in evidence for at least 10 years, and even then it was only in flashes.
Grant, Zola, Curbs, Pardew, Roeder - all of them mediocre. Pardew might have learned something, that remains to be seen. Bring on Fat Sam, at least you know what you're getting, and he won't bother about some fabled 'West ham way"
And they are slow to act again...that's what you're saying right HF? :)
Grant would have taken us down had he taken over in January because he is doing worse than Zola with a better squad and the Chairmen's support...so says your index HF! Where is that by the way?
And your analogy at the end is completely inapplicable to the situation. Zola kept us alive. Zola left us alive. It is Grant who is now murdered us with relegation. You keep digging a grave for yourself HF. No pun intended.
HF, it is more likely that Grant would have taken us down last season if appointed in January surely. He is doing worse than Zola with the players that he himself signed. If he was forced to manage to second half of last season with only the shite that Zola left him we would almost certainly be enjoying a mediocre campaign in the Championship right now.
I am by no means defending Zola, he was awful but assuming that we would have stayed up with an equally bad manager is just madness on your part.
1159 - answer the man HF - you're getting slack and are only answering the people who you think you can win the argument against - or those like sav and stani whom you seem to have a pathological hatred for
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