Slaven Bilic named as West Ham Manager (09.06.15)

Fortuneseeker

Same old blah de blah and all that stuff from Slaven.

Bazshuayi

I dont advocate sacking managers when a team goes through a bad patch, even a longish one. But...

I have to admit that other managers have been given the tin tack when they've had plenty of time to sort out defensive issues and not done so. As in, less time than Slaven Bilic has had.

I've got nothing against him but I have lost confidence that he will improve things to any degree and take us forward. As of yet though, I haven't got a particular manager in mind who I'd prefer to be in charge. If he does get sacked, I hope its before the end of the season so the new manager has a chunk of time this season and throughout the summer to attempt to shape the team/squad

ASLEFshrugged

Going on past form S&G are NOT going to sack Slaven, his contract expires at the end of next season and they'll wait until then to make any decision. Even if next season is as mediocre as this one they still might give him another contract because they had such a struggle to replace Sam, failing to attract Bielsa, Emery, de Boer, old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

Also all their talk of us "moving to the next level" is undermined when top class managers reject them. Slaven is probably about the best we can get at the moment

Adam

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/12/05/west-ham-urge-slaven-bilic-hire-rio-ferdinand-defensive-coach/

Bilic 100% deserves to choose his coaching staff but something is obviously not right with our defending.

Sometimes you can say teams concede a lot because of the way the team plays as a whole, i.e. too attacking. But we have conceded too many stupid goals, which we really shouldn't have.

I'm sure the players respect Rio for what he has done in his career and it freshens things up (without changing the players).

With 9 games left in the season, it's probably too late but something has to be done to address the amount of goals we concede (and have conceded since Bilic has come in).

MrsGrey

Adam - that article is from December. ;hmm

Adam

Haha, I know! But I came across it and it doesn't change the fact that Rio offered his services. Would we want him for next season?

ASLEFshrugged

Adam - this article is over three months old, the clue is in the article, "5-1 home defeat to Arsenal last Saturday" and "Liverpool away next Sunday". Also in the link; 2016/12/05

Adam

Yes ASLEF. Again that makes no difference to the point I'm trying to discuss.

alderz

Adam ;ok

For me, the introduction of a new defensive coach could be useful (whether Rio is the right person to do that, I don't know, given his lack of coaching experience). BUT I think the issue is less down to absence of a top class defensive coach, and more that the philosophy of our manager is to attack.

Arsenal could bring in the best defensive coach in the world, but if Wenger tells his fullbacks to play as wingers and leaves no defensive midfielders, they will always be exposed.

For us, our fullbacks bomb on, and our midfield often get caught out.

Yeoldhammer

He has Dicks ? isn't he suppose to be doing the defensive coaching if not move him on. 2 seasons on the bounce individual errors every game is costing us.

NEoldiron

Adam, I posted the same back in February
http://www.whu606.com/discussion/comment/848392/#Comment_848392

NEoldiron

Alderz, how does that explain the goals we've conceded at corners? ;hmm

OldCastleSwift

I think a big contributing factor is the inconsistency of selection. The best teams defend as a unit. We've been all over the place in that respect.

In defence we've played three at the back, then a flat back four. We've had four different players at right back, three or four different centre back pairings, Reid switching between RCB and LCB and Cresswell has been bang out of form and his deputy injured for most of the season.

In midfield we've sometimes played two in the middle, sometimes three. We've tried three different players on the right, three on the left and even now we don't seem to know who fits best.

Up front we've not had our best striker available pretty much all season. Our talisman is made of glass, our record signing is a bit of an enigma (winger? No10? Centre forward?) and our top scoring forward is a winger.

I don't know the stats (but I know someone that probably does...), but I'd imagine that of the 20 PL teams, we've had more starting XI changes than anyone else.

grey_til_I_dye

OCS

Accoriding to SKY, at the end of December we had made the 4th highest no of changes, behind Citeh, Swansea and Sunderland.


http://www.scoopnest.com/user/SkySportsStatto/805853704524075008

MrsGrey

tbf to Bilic, some of those changes would have been enforced, rather than a result of dithering.

Lukerz

Not signing a decent DM was the major issue.

Adam

Our attacking style of play accounts for only some of our goals conceded. Although an interesting stat is that we currently have the most shots per game in the league from set pieces (4.4) but only the 9th most shots per game from open play (8.8). Source is "whoscored.com".

But back to our goals conceded problem, something needs to be changed with only Bournemouth, Hull and Swansea conceding more than us this season.

Adam

Ooh. Another stat I've found is we have conceded a league high 7 (yes, seven!) goals within the first 10 minutes of a game (two of them yesterday). Man City have conceded 5 ( 2 of which were also against Leicester!) and some others 4. So, we are definitely the worst starters in the league, something which also needs to be rectified. Source is "soccerstats.com".

thornburyiron

Interesting that Sullivan has apologised to the fans and stated that we have to start playing "good" as he called it BEFORE we are losing.
I can't understand why we are the slowest starters in the league.

grey_til_I_dye

thorn

I'm pretty sure Slav doesn't get it either. Or the players. If they knew what was causing it, they'd get it sorted, wouldn't they?

thornburyiron

I would hope so but it's taking them a helluva long time to do so. Chelsea managed it very quickly.
Watching it again last night I noticed again that our defenders very rarely throw themselves in the way of shots or try to block crosses etc, rather they seem to just turn their backs.

grey_til_I_dye

thorn

Perhaps Conte is a genius, or perhaps he lucked into it.

Arsene Wenger, a man who has previous for knowing what he is doing, doesn't seem to be able to sort out the current issues with his Arsenal side.

Ranieri, a manager who took a bang average Leicester squad to the PL title, couldn't sort out Leicester.

It's clearly a combination of factors, not a simple, single thing.

I hope the owners give Slav the proper amount of time needed to get it sorted.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

I don't believe they'll sack him, he's still got the backing of the majority of fans (although there is plenty of discontent out there), getting rid would just add to the negative atmosphere.

They have to back him in the summer though and he has to get this defence sorted out, it's truly shocking.

How I would love to scrape a couple of 1-0's right now and a battling 0-0 away.

We've forgotten how to defend as a team a unit, Carroll does his bit in getting back, but the rest are poor at stopping the opposition.

Could be without Obiang and Reid for a while, therefore get Collins in there, was very surprised after waiting all this while for Obiang and Kouyate in the middle, he put him a CB and didn't bring Collins on.

Fernandes in the middle to help Kouyate.

baracks_a_hammer

Results and performances over the remaining games will dictate, IZWT

By then he will have had two years to make us a tighter defensive unit

If we are sitting not far above the relegation zone with some more defensive calamities along the way they won't renew his contract IMO

Yeoldhammer

I wouldn't sack him but he literally blew a whole transfer window on a bunch of bang average players. Would you trust him to get it right this window ?

We have to get to safety first though and i don't like our run in to say the least. We are at the point of where we were at Christmas, Hull + Swansea are must win games.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

He still has a year left, no? I can't see them doing anything until Xmas 2017 either way, if we're doing okay, they'll extend it, if a bit like this season, they just won't renew and if we're bang in trouble he'll be gone by the January window.

Perhaps he played to the crowd Baracks, lets not forget a vast number of our fan base kept reminding the previous manager that "we play on the floor" and 0-0's and 1-0's were not what we were about.....

They all came from the angle, "I don't care as long as it's decent football".....

#BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor

;biggrin

baracks_a_hammer

Yeold has it spot on

Would you give him another £50-£60m if it were your money?? ;hmm

They've got two choices keep him and back him with sizeable funds

Or part ways

Keeping him and not investing sizeably in the team won't work

I didn't realise he had another year to go..

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Or....

They don't sack him......check
Give him 30m and some loans.......check
Repeat the mess from this season........check
Stay in the PL, KERCHING!!!!.........check

;wink

baracks_a_hammer

Well yea izwt

After all they did make sam's end of contract departure pretty much an inevitability by not spending in his final transfer window..

;hmm

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

They've done it twice now barracks

Once with Sam, no investment in the January when we were about 6th?

And then again last season with Slav, the best opportunity you'll ever have of breaking the top 4