“be careful what you wish for.“
These 6 words were mentioned in every lazy journalist’s article around the time of Sam Allardyce’s sacking/Slaven Bilic’s appointment. This was off the back of probably the worst half of a season in West Ham’s history where we plummeted 8 places in the league, so naturally West Ham fans laughed it off; making it a punchline.
Fast forward a few months and 3 games into the Premier League season (yep that’s right. Three whole games. One of which we beat Arsenal in case you forgot) a couple of West Ham fans are already in their bi-annual crisis. Everyday armchair fans, people who own large Twitter accounts and even US talk show hosts are calling for Slaven Bilic’s head on a platter. Has this prophecy actually come true? Or is this really how fickle West Ham fans have become?
There is a word for people who want Bilic out already and Allardyce to come crawling back: delusional. You have to realise something; just because we are moving into a larger stadium doesn’t mean we at the level of Chelsea, Man Utd and Man City. What it means is that we might have a slight chance of possibly attempting to reach 7th place within the next decade. We are not a big club. We are a mid-table, financially stable club hoping to push upwards and perhaps reach Europe in a respectable, normal circumstance. And as we are not a big club, we cannot attract the Mourinho’s or the Guardiola’s of the world. We need to settle for managers who reflect on the ability of our squad. The only reason we were in talks with managers such as Marcelo Bielsa of Marseille was so that he could use us to get a better contract. The best available manager who was interested in us was the man we settled with, Slaven Bilic.
Ok granted, we had a torrid time in Europe. Losing away against the Maltese 3rd place side and eventually getting knocked out by FC Astra. A fair bit of that can be rightfully pinned on Slaven Bilic. Our squad wasn’t ready for competitive football that early on and our performances from the players were uninspired and ill-disciplined, something Bilic had to learn the hard way. And yes, Slaven can be held responsible for aspects of that. But this is a foreign squad to him; a squad with players who were unfamiliar to him and had been playing for the past 4 years in a certain style of play that was not accustomed to Bilic. Even going in to the opening 3 games of the Premier League season, it is still in the transition period of Bilic’s tenure, hence the reason results haven’t gone our way and some of our players are sloppy. Over time he will implement his style of play on to the team and results will happen.
Some people may be part of the anti-Slaven movement now and in a couple of months, which would be fine. However there are some people who want Sam Allardyce to return to the managerial post. These people have the memory span of a brain damaged goldfish. If you do genuinely think this, don’t say it out loud as you will deservedly be disowned by your family and/or put up for adoption. Have you honestly forgotten about the attitudes of this man to football? This is the man who’s stubbornness took us from 4th to 12th in 5 months. Who’s negative style of play left us with 3 wins in 21 games. The man who continually played Kevin Nolan as a middle finger to the fans. The man who got banned from making his own signings because he blew away so much on absolute rubbish.
I have seen numerous tweets saying “Sam Allardyce would not have lost 4-3 to Bournemouth.” I agree with that. There is no way a Sam Allardyce team would even dare of scoring 3 times against Bournemouth. Sam Allardyce would have been lucky to scrape a 2-0 loss against a Bournemouth side who are playing very good football. I can predict this because history does tend to repeat itself. April 2015. West Ham v Stoke. West Ham go 1-0 up after 7 minutes. Does Allardyce want to build on that lead like any half-decent manager would? No. He spends the next 83 minutes on the back foot. When Stoke had 2 goals narrowly ruled out for offside late on that should have been a warning call? Well Big Sam didn’t get that memo as Stoke inevitably equalised in the 94th minute.
Not to mention the relationship that Sam Allardyce had with the fans. Whenever he talked about the fans – whom he once cupped his ears to when they booed – post West Ham or whilst managing West Ham, there seemed to be a distance. It got to the point where to the end of his tenure, anything he did was slated by the fans, the same fans who after the game against Bournemouth were calling for him to come back. He could have saved a puppy from drowning in the Thames and the fans would criticise him for not curing cancer at the same time. The relationship with the fans, and the relationship with David Sullivan, got to the point of no return.
Allardyce also blamed the high expectations of the owners, who wanted “The West Ham Way.” Allardyce said he doesn’t know what it is and to be honest, neither do I. I have never heard any fan say they want this in a non-ironic way. However, whatever the West Ham way is, I am pretty sure it’s not only winning 3 games out of 21 post Christmas. Or missing out on around 12 points because of goals scored after the 80th minute. That is not the “West Ham way”.
To conclude this article, do I think Slaven should leave? No, wait for him to implement his style on the players. Do I think we should’ve been careful what we wished for? Probably not, but it’s too early to tell. Should we re-appoint Sam Allardyce? Well put it this way. The day Matthew Jarvis scores a bicycle kick in a Champions League game at the Olympic Stadium in 2018 is the day we should bow down to our Lord and saviour Sam Allardyce.
