The search for the new West Ham manager is well and truly underway and Pompey manager Avram Grant looks to be the favourite for the post, with an announcement expected any day now, but one of the other four members on the shortlist, Sam Allardyce, could be just what the club needs in its current situation.
Firstly, let me state that I think Sam Allardyce is a buffoon of a person, he makes comments in the media on a regular basis that are either not even remotely based in fact in any way, or are just so self-congratulatory that it’s sickening. The fact that he still maintains that he wasn’t chosen for the England job because of some sort of conspiracy within the FA hierarchy is simply absurd and shows at times, he can make statements that are somewhat detached from reality. He is quite frankly an oafish troglodyte of the very worst kind, but despite my less than positive opinion on him as a person, he is undoubtedly a very good manager in the lower reaches of the Premiership.
West Ham have indoctrinated a style of football, a pass and move philosophy first brought in by ex-England manager Ron Greenwood, carried on under John Lyall and even Harry Redknapp a full 30 years later. Tony Carr has carried it through the youth team systems producing a core of players that form many an England squad.
But they’ve carried on stubbornly for years, even when it’s been proved to have been their downfall. It’s an admirable policy, but one that’s doomed to failure when you don’t have the right players to choose from, or an experienced enough manager to enforce it when it’s needed and also implement an adaptable plan B when the occasion calls for it – under Zola there simply was no plan B.
Fat Sam is great in a crisis. Brought in last season after the shambles left by Paul Ince, he steadied the ship and took Blackburn to a comfortable 15th in the league, a full 7 points away from the drop. He’s built upon that even further this season and Blackburn are now once again under his stewardship, an extremely difficult side to beat and he’s taken the club to a commendable 10th position in the league with a young and dogged side.
West Ham have had only 12 managers in their entire history, of them, Zola has the lowest win percentage, winning only 23 of his 80 games in charge at a rate of 28.75%, far worse than the much maligned reigns of Curbishley (71 games, 28 wins at a rate of 39.44%) and Glenn Roeder (86 games, 27 wins at a rate of 31.40%). Zola embodied the West Ham style of play, yet it nearly proved their undoing.
A degree of realism needs to be brought back to West Ham and a manager such as Allardyce could be the one do it, to stabilise the club and take them back to the mid-table obscurity that they had been accustomed to before this tumultuous campaign. He’s also great at working within restrictive budgets, something which would obviously be available in abundance at Upton Park, during his time at Bolton and now at Blackburn, it’s when he’s got money to spend as typified by his failed spell at Newcastle that you want to worry.
Whether Allardyce will want to take the job though remains to be seen. He looks as if he’s building a team in his own image at Blackburn and he’s got the support of the boardroom and large swatches of the fan base and a measure of job security. The style of play can leave a lot to be desire at times, well most of the time in fact, but it’s time West Ham fans were prepared to sacrifice style for substance for a period, otherwise they’ll continue to be a yo-yo club.
As I stated before, Avram Grant looks to be the frontrunner for the job and he looks to have paved the way for any approach from the club by stating that he wants to continue managing in the top flight, and seeing as the West Ham one is the only one going at the moment, it would look to be a sealed deal. Grant has done a decent job at Fratton Park, taking them to an FA Cup final; he has experience in the upper echelons of the game that he experienced in his time at Chelsea, and of working under tight circumstances like he did at Pompey this year where his side rallied around their manager under some truly terrible circumstances, so Grant would be a decent appointment all round.
Allardyce may be an unpopular choice, he will be anywhere else he manages throughout the remainder of his managerial career, I think even he knows that, but the man gets results for teams going through the ringer and you cannot question his record. For this reason alone, he’d be the man I’d approach if I were the West Ham board. No team under Sam Allardyce’s management will get relegated from the top flight, no matter what the odds and that cold, harsh dose of reality could be just the tonic down at Upton Park, for the time being at least.
So what does everyone else think – Allardyce wide of the mark? Or is Avram Grant the man for you?
Written By James McManus