West Ham United have been in shocking form this season and are now sitting 1 point ahead of the relegation zone in 17th after an uninspiring 5-1 defeat to Arsenal at the London Stadium which has prompted questions over Slaven Bilic’s future as West Ham United manager. According to the Mirror’s Darren Lewis, Slaven Bilic is set for crisis talks with West Ham.
This piece by Darren Lewis has suggested that the Croatian will have the two games after Liverpool (A) against Burnley and Hull, which are both at the soulless London Stadium, to save his job in charge of the Hammers.
As mentioned in the article from The Mirror, Bilic publicly criticized his players by saying that they were “lacking commitment – even in training.”. Although these comments may be true, when a manager publicly slams his players it usually means that he has lost the dressing room, this was also the case with José Mourinho at Chelsea last season.
The Mirror reported last season that the West Ham board were holding back on giving the Croatian a new contract as they feared that he could be a “one-season wonder” which is now looking quite true that he is a one-season wonder as he may have been helped by the emotion of the Farewell Boleyn season, just like club captain Mark Noble who has been a shadow of his former self from last season. Another case may be that the defensive foundations that Sam Allardyce left when Slaven Bilic joined are not there anymore, just like the case with Everton when they went from David Moyes to Roberto Martínez and with Crystal Palace when they went from Tony Pulis to Alan Pardew. Bilic still has 18 months left on his current contract.
The West Ham board have proposed to change Bilic’s backroom staff in an attempt to shake things up with many people questioning what the likes of Nikola Jurčević, Edin Terzic and West Ham legend, Julian Dicks are doing in the dugout during a game. However, it has come out very recently that Slaven Bilic has rejected an offer from Rio Ferdinand to become a defensive coach at West Ham.
In my opinion, I would give Slaven Bilic 5 more games to save his job but he needs to reach a minimum of 10 points from them games. I don’t expect any points at Anfield on Sunday but against Burnley (H), Hull (H) and Swansea (A) I expect 9 points as all of them teams are quite beatable and on New Years Eve when West Ham will travel to the champions, Leicester, I am expecting a point as the Foxes are in the same position as us going from a huge high to a huge low. In Bilic’s defence, it has been a very difficult season for him as David Gold and Sullivan failed to invest well into this West Ham team with many of the new signings from the summer like Simone Zaza failing to impress. Karren Brady hasn’t helped situations by coming out with silly comments about West Ham fans which has made the atmosphere at the London Stadium very sour and obviously, the move from the intimidating, passionate and old fashioned Boleyn Ground to the non-atmospheric, soulless and the modern London Stadium has not helped situations as it is very hard for the West Ham fans to recreate the atmosphere at Upton Park which helped West Ham very tough times just like this one.
