What were the critical management decision issues that the new owners had to make this year? In sequence, the West Ham Board should have done the following:
1. Do a clean up: Identify players in our squad that have repeatedly proven themselves to be more liabilities than assets and put together a plan for getting rid of them; and replacing them with competent Premier League players.
2. Make available a budget that would enable a skilful manager to achieve survival this year and build a good team in the next few years capable of competing for a European place.
3. Sack the current manager for failing to make a team of West Ham and for keeping us bottom of the League all season and repeatedly proving himself to be not up to the task.
4. Seek to appoint a new proven manager (such as O’Neill), one that can motivate and organize the team.
5. Move to the Olympic Stadium, or plan to build a new stadium, to ensure that the economics for long term survival are in place.
Now, if you read the five decision issues backwards from the 5th to the 1st and add to it a gross general mishandling (one that made the Club the laughing stock of the Premier League), you will end up with “all the wrong moves” by the West Ham Board!
They started with, and are almost totally pre-occupied by, the Olympic Stadium project. When they finally realized that we are reaching the point of no return, they sought to appoint a new manager before sacking the existing one and before making available an adequate budget to make a revival possible. Last but not least, they persevered with trusting the future of the Club to the hands (or should I say feet) of players who have proven, beyond any reasonable doubt, that they are not fit to be playing in this League. I will not mention any names because we all know who these players are; all except perhaps the owners and Avram Grant.
If only it was all so easy. You overlook the debt as a starting point and also fail to acknowledge that the ENTIRE squad, except for Parker, WERE up for sale. But nobody wants them! Why would you want to sign players from a team that finished fourth from bottom of the Prem exactly? Who would you buy from this team? Only the players we wouldn't want to sell: Noble, Parker (although I would sell him!) and Tomkins. They were trying to move on Cole but there were no takers. Look how long it has been before we could find a buyer for Behrami! Upson is earning too much for anybody to take him on, and the same is true of Dyer, McCarthy and Faubert. BUPA can't afford to buy Ilunga or Dyer for spare parts either.
ReplyDeleteAs for the move to the Olympic Stadium, there speaks somebody who lives in Cyprus! Green Street is our home. You talk about a viable future but you want to cut away all our heritage, all our links with the past. That would be criminal!
agree with hammerfan. How could Grant do anything more - its the players letting us down on the pitch, they bottle it after they score and have no answers to long balls, cause we have no money to buy anyone.
ReplyDeleteIm hoping with some of the injuries coming back we may have enough fire power, ive read that both Oneil and Allydyce said that they would need a min of 5 addtional players to stay up, so how can Grant do it without the players, the board made a hash of it and now its too late to get anyone decent! Fingers crossed!
They didn't do a bad job at Birmingham
ReplyDeleteSav,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that they did things the wrong way around. With the money they made available to Grant, they thought it would suffice for him to make adequate changes to keep us in the league and had their eyes on the OS prize. Any decent manager would have done that but they appointed someone highly inept. They have now found that out and are having to chuck more money at the problem after initially trying to get rid of him. So thick, they even cocked up his sacking.
HF,
ReplyDeleteI don't think there was any real attempt at selling anyone. What they should have done is made a concentrated effort and sold the surplus for a low price to get what they could AND get them off the wage bill asap.
Whilst they have reduced the debt well it is the only thing they've done well. Why? Because reducing debt is in their int£r£st. But this shouldn't have stopped them doing the other things Sav mentioned.
And the players you are saying are crap are the same players that I was saying are crap under Zola but you blamed Zola then!
The debt is no excuse for screwing up!
ReplyDeleteI am entitled to my opinion regarding the need to have a bigger stadium, no matter where I happen to live HF. So, if one decided at some stage to move to Cyprus, like I did, because like you, I am a British citizen raised and lived for many years in England, in your thinking, one is not entitled to have an opinion about the stadium? I seem to remember you preaching Stani and a few others about British values and freedom of speech and all that. I leave this to the reader who is the real hypocrite here!
Thanks for posting my article by the way!
You are entitled to your opinion of course Sav, but you won't be a regular at Upton Park will you. I think those whoo turn up game after game after game deserve more of a say, that's all I'm saying. Watching on Sky or wherever, the game will look the same. Try watching from the wrong side of an athletics track live at the ground however!
ReplyDeleteThanks for submitting the article!
Stani, Zola inherited a good squad. The sale of Etherington, Collins and Bellamy were all serious errors and, due to his weak management, the players lost focus and the will to win.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think Collins had to go because of our huge dept. To sell Etherington was a massive fault. I didn't understand it when he was sold and I still don't understand the reasons because he's still a decent player with pace and good technical skills. The departure of Bellamy was rude but I don't think Zola had too many choices. Bellyache seemed desperate to leave the club and we could need the money. To waste that money on Savio was unthought and really stupid...but I guess that's just making business the West Ham way.
ReplyDeleteThe sale of Etherington, Collins and Bellamy were indeed all serious errors, but I am not sure we can lay the blame solely on Zola for these. I guess he could have resigned over it but I don't think it was his choice.
ReplyDeleteThe rot started all those years ago when Brown & his crowd of tossers sold Fat Frank, Rio & Joe C.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the subsequent sales of Defoe, Carrick, Anton and Matty E.
Imagine the squad we could have had with a little bit of foresight, preparedness to keep those marquee youngsters and pay them what they were worth.
Need I mention the sacking of 'Arry? In a decade of idiocy, that has to have been the most idiotic.
HF, i agree that our squad lost the will to win due to Zola's poor management and signings but surely this is further proof that what we needed, and still need, is a motivator. That is why the team still has the losing mentality. Grant, through all his infectious enthusiasm will never turn this problem around.
ReplyDeleteHF,
ReplyDeleteZola may have inherited a good squad, but this is not the same as having a good squad. Whether it was through injury or through FORCED sales (Collins, Bellamy, Neill), he was left with near enough what you and the Chairmen are now recognising as a rubbish squad.
In regards to the sale of Etherington; he had a gambling problem at the time and was not fully concentrated on his football. He wasnt playing well otherwise we, including you, would have kicked up a fuss back then. The last point is that no one would have expected him to do as well as he is now, not that he is world beater all of a sudden, like you're making him out to be. Etherington himself said he did not expect it so I'm not sure how you can suggest you could. I read this the other day and kept it in answer to this argument:
"I'm probably playing the best football of my career. It has gone better than I thought it would."
But as Sav rightly says, none of this was Zola's fault. You may say that he should have resigned over it, but it was his first job, he believed he could help us and I think he did well in the circumstances. Who would we have got if he did leave? You will then say this is weak, but it's not as weak as Avram is right now.
West Ham sign Demba Ba on permanent deal - CRAZY!!!
ReplyDeleteChunky, I'm not sure Ramsay ever used the hair dryer did he? Hard to imagine Brooking doing it but he did quite well in his brief time in charge. Sven, unlikely but has a pretty good record as a manager. I'm sure I could think of others. All that said, I was bloody cross that Avram was so lacking in animation at the end of 90 minutes before extra time kicked off!
ReplyDeletestoke v west ham finished 1-1
ReplyDeletebirmingham v west ham 2-2 gave away a 2 goal lead
west ham v west brom 2 -2
west ham v everton 1 - 1
everton v west ham 2-2
and ofc birmingham last night.
every single ones of these games we had the lead in the 2nd half and threw it away (10 points or 8th place in the prem !! and a cup final )
I have actually been with HF in my support for AG, however the Birmingham result and post match comments ! have changed that,
Alan Pardew used to speak about match days as the time the manager really earns his wages.
AG in my opinion has done a really really good job off the pitch with a total load of rubbish full of injury prone players, back stabbing, no funds and in general total chaos (multiplied by 10 with our 3 board members!! ), but we are tactically challenged on matchdays and it is for this reason west ham are bottom of the table. AG must now go.