The decision of Zola to stick with West Ham, rather than the decision of West Ham to stick with Zola, has brought the ostriches out in their droves. The familiar chant has gone up, "Get behind the manager, get behind the club, get behind the team"; I am betraying the club by voicing concerns; it is down to me and others like me whether or not we win, apparently! On that basis, West Ham should pay me £1.9m per year to motivate the team! If I get behind them we will win, if I am critical we will lose! Pay me then, because Zola has no positive effect on them but I can pull victories or defeats out of a hat just like that apparently!
Parker tried to blame the fans after the Bolton defeat and that was outrageous. I felt physically sick to hear those same fans chanting "You're not fit to wear the shirt" during the Wolves game but prior to conceding the second goal, the support was unqualified. It made no difference to the performance though did it? Against Stoke, the support was excellent until the "I've got a tube to catch" brigade started to drift away in their droves with 15 minutes left. But again, it did not lift the team did it? No goals scored and, even more of an indictment in my book, not a single booking - just like against Wolves.
I stayed the course in all three games. I sang Bubbles, Come On You Irons, Indestructible and Over Land and Sea. But what good did it do? Sod all. Why? Because in all three games the team lacked motivation, organisation and inspiration. The Three Monkey Brigade can jump around in circles, scratching their arm pits and grunting "In Zola We Trust" but what difference will that make? None. The brutal truth is that Zola has taken us from a team in the top 5 on takeover to a team who no longer have the power to avoid relegation based on our own efforts. If Hull win their game in hand, we are as good as down.
Let's not be under any illusions here. Sullivan and Gold were hoping Zola would walk. Zola hasn't stayed for the fans, he has stayed for Clarke. And what do the players want? Most of them couldn't give a monkey's toss. They like Zola but there is a world of difference between liking and respecting a manager. I doubt that many of the Man Utd players like Ferguson! Do you remember backing Roeder all the way to the Fizzy Pop?
COYI!
28 comments:
I have to agree with you. The team are managed by a gentleman and that is reflected in the style of play - a lack of guile and mental toughness needed to deal with the challenge of being in a dire relegation scrap. I cannot see how things will change before the end of the season I'm sad to say, unless the players take more responsibilty themselves and be honestly brutal with Zola.
Michael
I think we have to be careful here in labelling each other. Just like we mustn't accuse those who want Zola out of not supporting our club, we also mustn't assume that those who are behind Zola, all have their heads buried in the sand. Views of both can be formed from sound reasoning so mustn't be frowned upon or used to accuse one another of lack of support.
The more one side accuses the other of not supporting the team because of criticism, and the more the other side responds by saying your head's in the sand, the more the arguments begin to get away from football.
Not so Stani. I know you are a staunch backer of Zola but you engage in debate and try to justify his decisions. There is a different type of Zola backer, the type who refuse to criticise come what may. The odd thing is that 34,000 are furiously angry INSIDE the stadium on match days but very few are then willing to express concerns after the game. It is as if they wipe their minds after the final whistle, sending all memory of what they had witnessed to the recycle bin.
COYI!
The chairmen won't sack him. The little Italian won't walk. He's going to stick it out. For the money? Maybe. To save his managerial reputation? I hope so. But whatever, we're stuck with him, so we might as well sing like we're winning.
COYI
Who knows Rab? If we ship 4 or 5 at Everton, what then? If Zola still wants to stay, do we all nod sagely and say, "In Zola we trust"? I remember the fans accepting Pardew had to go after a four goal thumping at Bolton. I do not understand this backing of Zola regardless of the results. I know why Sullivan and Gold are reluctant to sack him but as long as the fans voice support, why should Zola walk away? It is like deliberately having unprotected sex with somebody who you know has AIDS as far as I'm concerned. If the fans united in calling upon Zola to go, he might walk. Unless he walks, we will go down. I think West Ham fans have a duty to force his resignation!
I forgot, COYI!
Zola has completely run out of ideas! His backroom staff should be giving him advice, looking at the previous games stats and data. If 34000 people can see what is wrong then it should be a doddle for them to address the issues.
The fact that nothing has changed is lies at the feet of Zola and Clark. No if's, not buts, it is thier fault.
Now Zola has elected to stay and 'fight it out and save West ham from Relegation', bollox, he is staying to try and salvage whatever remaings of his reputation.
I spent last season and most of this season backing Zola to the hilt, alas my faith is seriously misplaced. The sooner he buggers of back to Sardinia the better. The damage is done and we WILL be in the Championship next season!!
We will lose the spine of the team and will have to rebuild, sad as it is, cannot see any other outcome.
I hope and pray that i am wrong.
"has brought the ostriches out in their droves." Point me to them, where are they? That's the trouble with this blog it's all in your own head. The reality is that 'droves' have been calling for Zola's head for sometime. You seem to enjoy setting yourself up as a martyr, why is that?
The mock, COYI is a typical fingerprint of yours is that any worse than gloating?
1946 Check out the comments on the Zola's Open Letter forum!
I've only been here the once before and to be honest that was enough - but I really couldn't let this heading go news now - even though I know that's the point of this horrid and negative blog
Hope is indeed a very dangerous thing but a lack of hope can be fatal. If we decide now that we are down then we will go down.
No one is calling for blind optimism and a failure to acknowledge the serious trouble we are in but last nights result showed there is still some chance for us to pull clear. Very few teams get anything away to ManU, Arsenal or Chelski, even fewer have to string 3 away games against them together in a row.
Yes we were awful against Bolton and Wolves, no excuses we were shocking. The lack of effort and urgency was despicable, and the players should feel very ashamed of themselves. Against Stoke the whole team looked scared stiff of making a mistake, which in turn led to them making mistakes. The effort was however markedly improved from the previous game. To be fair it could have been much worse unless the players refused to come out for the second half.
I think Zola giving the players time off is a good thing. Its easy to hide in a group, to convince each other that its not your fault really. But when you wake up and there is no one there to hide behind you are forced to take a look at yourself. Forcing the players to address their own short comings and failures is the right thing to do.
This is Zola's last throw of the dice, there really isn't anything else that he or for that matter anyone else can do to change the players attitudes. Yes he can change the tactics but it wont matter a damn if the players don't change their attitude.
The one parallel that can encouragingly be drawn from the great escape season was that after the spuds game, just like after the stoke game virtually everyone thought we were down. We started to play with a freedom that fear of relegation had robbed us of,
Maybe going to everton with no expectation of a result and everyone thinking we are doomed before kick off will let the players relax more. The strange thing is that if you took the squads available to us, Wigan, Hull and Burnley and showed them to someone who hadn't seen and games this season they would inevitably say we are the best equipped to get out of trouble.
If Wigan get one point less than us from their remaining games and we beat them at our place then we go above them in the table and Hull's game in hand no longer matters. Its not impossible, Wigan are away to Fulham this weekend and Fulham will want to bounce back from their loss to Hull, so if we get a draw at Everton, and Fulham win a game they should win then its down to us and Wigan at the Boleyn.
Hows that for hope?
That's a rather loaded place isn't it? I'm a fool and even I can see that. You appear to have created this falsehood so that you can champion yourself in the face of all odds when in actual fact it only exists in your little Joan of Ark world oh yes COYI
19:46 I think masochist is the correct word used elsewhere.... oh and perhaps add tit
1949 Do you mean the one that includes this
"Total and utter mugs. None of the fans around me wanted Zola to stay on Saturday."
The same thread where most of the posts are anti you, so you take that to mean they are pro Zola?
You sound a little confused to me
CelticHammer, Firstly love your little cheap shot about this blog. Secondly you are talking bollocks...piss of back to the "we love Zola brigade" at the org. Its fans like you that have brainwashed Zola into thinking he is not responsible for the position we are in. Excuse after excuse on the org about the credit crunch, the take over, Zola has honour, Zola is a rookie, Lets give him more time (2 yrs just isnt enough to destroy a club eh?) The org is a joke with their blinding faith in zola. NEVER before has a manager been let of the hook time and time again. Now you and your fellow org brigade are now trying to save face, IT AINT going to fly, you should be ashamed of yourselfs, thanks for sending us into the oblivion. I hope you are happy..IN ZOLA WE TRUST STILL!!!
Yes HF (1919), that's exactly what I meant. What I tried to say is that everyone in each of the groups isn't the same.
For example you justify your arguments for wanting him out but some people just critcise him because he's a nice guy and the fact that he smiles.
Is this the same CelticHammer who contributed a series of articles for this blog, including an account of his trip to the Villa game last season? And the same CleticHammer who stirred the hive over at Dale's site? Or is this somebody riding on the coat tails of that Celtic Hammer?
Stani, my comments are aimed at the Three Monkeys Brigade - the Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil merchants. Those who insist somebody doesn't support West Ham because he is critical. You have faith in Zola - I think it is misguided. Others have faith in Zola because they see it as a badge of honour rather than because they have thought about it.
Celtic, your hope is commendable but if you look at what you have written, you describe an incompetent manager. If we have the best squad / team, why are we below Wigan and level on points with Hull, having played a game more? Why did the players play so abysmally against Bolton and Wolves? Why were they petrified against Stoke?
2104 most of the org want Zola out you prick.
Do they? Delmonte has been blaming Sullivan and there's the usual, let's all get behind Zola tosh. Like that makes a positive difference!
HF,
Yes, this is my point; there are people on your side (those with your view) that have justification for their argument and there are people on my side that also do.
Of course Stani. It's just that those on your side are wrong. ; }
HF,
I have no enthusiasm for Zola. I bare him no ill will, but he doesn't pump my nads (as they say). But it looks like happenstance and circumstance mean we're stuck with him to the end of the season. We're in a no win situation. This is going to be a truly excruciating end to the season. And the fact that we're in this situation is not the sole responsibility of Zola. Even when he goes (and he will eventually - probably at the end of the season whatever the outcome - his position is untenable after all that has happened) West Ham will still go into next season in really poor shape. In which case I don't know in who to trust.
True mate
21:04 HF - you have to stop making posts as Anonymous - to back yourself up - it makes you look more stupid that you already are........
As a person now doubt Zola is a nice bloke, but as a football manage I honestly do think he has his head burried in the sand, maybe he has got himself so involved he can't see the wood from the trees. He is now stating 'We must stay strong' think he should be saying 'We must find strength from somewhere' of course his English is not that good and maybe that was what he was intending to say anyway
HF,
Unfortunately we'll never get to find out as Zola will probably leave at the end of the season. Then I wonder who we'll get to work under these comedians.
0922, just because you make posts congratulating yourself, don't assume we all do it! The post you select starts by praising one of my critics doesn't it? COYI!
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