Slaven Bilic named as West Ham Manager (09.06.15)

Lukerz

Grey - the board have been ‘on the verge’ of a lot of things during their time here.

All the way back to Beckham, van Nistelrooy, Riquelme, Henry to the most recent ones of Bacca, Carvahlo, Batshuayi, Iheanacho, Lacazette to name only a few.

Rafa was just another on the list of ‘nearly’ signings. No doubt they tried and all were close. The outcome though was unsuccessful.

They are either just incredibly, incredibly unlucky or lack the ability to get things over the line.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Probably a bit of both imo

We spent £45m on Ayew and Arnie but £65m gets you Carvalho and Bats.....now that really is next level

Zaza couldn’t hit a barn door with us but he has 8 goals in Spain this season, the total amount we have this season ;weep

claretandbluesky

Looking down the list of the betting for our next manager you can see the problem which is availability. One name which I could see which may appeal to our board is Pardew on a contract until the end of the season.

He is available, likely not too expensive, has West Ham ties and importantly tends to have immediate impact before trailing into struggling long term. As we desperately need instant impact he may be what we end up with.

The hope is that Benitez is tempted and uses the change of board at Newcastle to let himself out of the door, but unlikely with him doing well at present.

mike

This is ridiculous,how many more chances must he have.?
I remember the 2010-11 season when the board couldn't make up their mind whether to sack avram grant or not.We all know what happened there.?

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

It wasn’t that they couldn’t make up their mind, they had MON lined up but I think he said no after indictating he would, then they stuck with Avram

Moore_than_a_nick

Harry's free - maybe he could have another go?

Moore_than_a_nick

Carrick wouldn't be a bad first signing...

Moore_than_a_nick

And Rio's boxing adventure can only last so long...

Bazshuayi

Defoe's injured, so he can come too.

#[email protected]

Bazshuayi

While we're on the 'arry line, didnt a guy named Bilic play at the back for him ;hmm A nice pairing with Rio anda new role for him

Vorselaarhammer

So missed the game but when a friend told me the score I thought he was joking.

Bilic must know you only get one Brighton performance. If this was BFS he would have been hung by now, once we like someone we're a loyal bunch but he has gone beyond that now.

He says we have got out of this before, but the questions why are we in it again. We have the best first 11 for a long long time.

The Davids could have fired him last season.

I'm now in a position of hoping we pull the gun before Everton, as we will probably be looking for a similar level manager.

I understand he has two games to prove himself, both London Derbies, lets see if he can pull a rabbit out of the hat AGAIN...

billybondsbeard

Benitez is a Friend of Amanda Stavely - I think he'll stay at Newcastle

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Bilic has had more than one Brighton performance remember NUFC?

SuzanneClaret

Press saying this morning that he has two games to save his job.

ASLEFshrugged

SCHB - MON never said yes, someone from the club (thought to be KB) told the press he'd be replacing Grant and apparently he was angry that they had made it public before he'd made a decision.

OldCastleSwift

My concern now is that the board are basically sticking with a manager who won’t be at the club in August. Barring a huge turnaround, there’s no way they’ll offer SB an extension, so he’s basically a dead man walking. This inevitably means they won’t give him any money to spend in January because they’ll want to save it for the new man in the summer, so it seems like we’re destined for a season of treading water, hoping to stay in the league so we can appoint someone else to ‘take us to the next level’.

Problem is, and slightly off topic, but I don’t think the current chairmen can take us to the next level. I don’t think they have either the money, nor the professionalism for it. Take the Carvalho situation. We couldn’t afford to/didn’t want to (delete as appropriate based on which story you believe) meet the buy-out clause, and then got in a public slanging match with the Sporting chairman about who was telling the truth. It’s one thing to miss out on a player in the summer, but to then rule out any chance of signing him in January by engaging in a childish spat is not what I want from a board.

I do appreciate that they saved us from the financial mire and have put us on the right path, but I don’t think they’re ready to mix it with the big boys. As much as it pains me, I really admire what Levy has done with Spurs. They’ve got it right on the pitch, they got it right with the manager and they’ve got it right with the new stadium. They’re everything I want West Ham to be but it feels like we’re a million miles away from that.

As for Bilic, I really feel for him. I genuinely believe he’s trying his best but his best appears not to be good enough. He was the man I wanted to replace Allardyce, and I felt hugely vindicated after his first season. But, on reflection, that was a lot to do with the fact that the big clubs had a terrible season on the whole, plus we had the Payet factor. But even then, 7th was not as good as it could have been (that Stoke game ;weep ) and then we subsequently blew our chance of European football by (IMO) not committing to it properly. Last season never got close to the heights of 2015-16, but we found excuses with the stadium move, Payet-gate and the perennial injury crisis, but we’ve actually found a way of being worse this time round.

Sadly, this is the second season running where I’ve found no enjoyment watching West Ham. We appear to have no defined system, no style, no identity, no fitness and unfortunately that is down to the manager and his team of coaches. Of course the players have to take some responsibility, but ultimately it’s Bilic’s job to get the best out of them and, quite simply, and sadly, he isn’t.

horshamhammer

Another thing - why has Bilic ditched three at the back again? You would have thought two 3-0 hidings against promoted teams would have consigned a back four to the bin...

Lukerz

If we are going to play a back four, Zabaleta can’t be the RB. He showed at City, a castle superior team, last season that his legs had gone at RB. What chance has he got here?

Hart
Byram - Fonte - Reid - Cresswell
Noble - Obiang - Kouyate
Antonio - Lanzini
Chicharito

Adrian, Ogbonna, Zabaleta, Rice, Arnautovic, Ayew, Carroll

But I don’t know why, again, he’s ditched the back 3 when we started getting positive results playing it?

It just looks like he doesn’t know what he’s doing?

OutcastLondoner

I think it's pretty clear he does it to try and fit his best attacking players in? Same reason he doesn't play a diamond.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

OCS ;ok

Dropping the back 3 model is even more baffling to me than the Antonio experiment, at least I could see why he was trying to turn this powerful athlete into a wing back it just didn’t work out because he’s a bit of a bull in a china shop.

Somehow we’ve got to stick with the CB pairing for a bit, try and get some confidence but Fonte and Reid don’t exactly set the world alight for me, they don’t look comfortable on the ball or passing. Ogbonna is probably the more technically gifted but day dreams like Tomkins did, bring back Ginge!!

SuzanneClaret

On Friday more often than not the ball was played to Fonte by Hart who played it to Reid who played in to Fonte who passed it back to Hart who had to hoof it away quickly as he was under pressure from the opposition forward.

It looked like a lack of confidence and very little movement in front of them.

horshamhammer

I think he is trying to shoehorn in the expensive players. What he should be doing is putting the team before individuals, and if certain players don't like it, then tough.

What I think it does show is the failings of our transfer policy. It's all very well signing expensive players, but if they don't fit into the system Bilic wants to play then it's a bit of a waste of time. I get the impression that manager and owners are not singing from the same hymn sheet on that one.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Saw that Suze, it was awful to watch, for me it’s a combination of confidence and lack of movement in front of them from the midfield.

See this is why when AC does play it’s a benefit because at least they have a target they can hit (and hope)

But then the fans label it long ball hoof

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

But it is long ball hoof if you’re constantly lumping it to Carroll.

For all his faults, Noble is the best at coming to collect the ball from the CBs. He can then give it to Lanzini in a slightly more advanced position and we look like we have more of an idea on how to attack.

Lukerz

The stats about distance covered are telling. The team are just not working hard enough. That’s one major factor in why we are so rubbish. If we start putting in the hard yards and applying pressure we might start winning second balls that Bilic always references, and some tackles too.

Once we start doing the basics, we will start improving. But the side seem unwilling to do the dirty work first. There is too much passing the buck going on.

I can accept a lack of confidence impacting our ability with the ball (passing, crossing, shooting), but lacking confidence does not stop you running and working hard.

Lukerz

Jorderz_Slaven_A_Good_Time said:

But it is long ball hoof if you’re constantly lumping it to Carroll.

For all his faults, Noble is the best at coming to collect the ball from the CBs. He can then give it to Lanzini in a slightly more advanced position and we look like we have more of an idea on how to attack.

This is a great point. When we finally get Lanzini, Chicharito, Arnie and Antonio in the side together, why then do we take Nobes out? That is the one time he is fully needed on the pitch. There is a reason we never win when Nobes isn’t playing. He is at the foundation of that diamond with Arnie, Lanzini and Antonio. Kouyate is hardly going to supply them and Obiang is very 50-50 on passing.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

But at least it’s a plan, and that i prefer

Friday like so many other games was zero plan from what I could see, at one point Kouyate was the furthest forward and Lanzini was just in front of the back four

I agree about noble, but he’s the fans latest hate figure, they have to have one, it’s compulsorary

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

I agree that long-ball to Carroll is a plan, as opposed to what seemed like no plan whatsoever against Brighton.

I just don’t think it’s an acceptable plan when you have the attacking players we have.

OutcastLondoner

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard said:

But at least it’s a plan, and that i prefer

Friday like so many other games was zero plan from what I could see, at one point Kouyate was the furthest forward and Lanzini was just in front of the back four

I agree about noble, but he’s the fans latest hate figure, they have to have one, it’s compulsorary

He ended up so high up because they were playing so deep, so he couldn't drive forwards (though he arguably hasn't really been doing that anyway) and just ended up lost because he's not the player to unlock a defence. I guess that's why Ayew was brought on early.

Agree with Jorderz, it's a 'plan' that revolves around Carroll and lacks balance. It's predictable. So many times I've heard people say we didn't play to his strengths when we did try to but it's hard to get it onto his head when it's obvious that's what we're trying to do.

Moojor

I think we need an identity on the pitch. A manager who is going to say, this is the style of football we want to play and these are the players I need to make that happen.
If the current lot don't have the skills then you bring in people from the dev squad to fill the holes.
As Horsham said, shoehorning expensive players in to a system that doesn't work from them is a waste of time and money.
If Bilic can't set up the team he wants because of the owners not backing him he should quit.
If this is his "style" then he needs to start ripping the players apart for not putting in the effort. Start getting players from the dev squad if the first teamers thinking strolling around is acceptable.
If the owners aren't going to renew his contract, then they need to get rid of him now because letting this drag on for the next 3 or 4 months will see us going down.