It has been a strange week as speculation about Sam Allardyce and his possible replacement reaches fever pitch ahead of Sunday’s game against Newcastle. Yesterday the Telegraph claimed that the West Ham board will call a meeting with Sam Allardyce on Bank Holiday Monday 25th May less than 24 hours after the full whistle of the season. Sources close to the board claim that Karren Brady remains his sole supporter in the board room.
Big Sam
Matt Law claims Allardyce will be gone by the end of that meeting and says Sam will be flying out for holidays on Tuesday regardless of the meeting outcome.
The Daily Mirror claim he has been contacting utility companies giving final meter readings for his London flat as he prepares to leave West Ham. They add that Allardyce has begun the process of moving out of his 40th floor Canary Wharf apartment ahead of what is expected to be his departure next week following the final game of the season.
According to Ken Dyer in the London Evening Standard Allardyce will move out of his Canary Wharf rented apartment on Friday. Dyer quotes a club source as saying: “The apartment has been sold. Sam should have moved out last week but was given an extension. It would be a mistake to read too much into this.”
Another hint of the possible outcome of the meeting is that West Ham have given permission League 2 Stevenage permission to speak to Teddy Sheringham about the soon to be vacant manager position. The CEO of Stevenage is the former West Ham commercial director Barry Webber. Today, Stevenage officially confirmed they are looking to appoint Teddy as their new manager.
Meanwhile the West Ham managerial short list race of candidates hots up.
Rafa Benitez
Primary candidate Rafa Benitez has refused to commit his future to Napoli after crashing out of the Europa semi final and getting banned for a league game for calling ‘All Italian football s**t’. It is understood that Rafa has retained a family home in the UK and his family frequently spend time in the UK. This week Rafa became the odds on bookies favourite at 4/5 to succeed Allardyce with some media outlets claiming he agreed a deal in principle worth £3m per year with the Hammers.
In recent days Benitez has been linked to Real Madrid and his odds were drastically slashed from 16/1 to 4/1 after Sky’s Spanish football expert Guillem Balague says Real Madrid have sounded out both Jurgen Klopp and Rafa Benitez to see if they would be interested in taking over from Carlo Ancelotti. There is also credible information that Napoli have offered a massive pay rise to Benitez for him to stay at the helm. He is thought to currently earn £2.92m at Napoli so they would well price us out the market for his services.
Meanwhile Benitez has also been linked to a return to Liverpool and an unlikely move to Manchester City. Liverpool fans chartered a plane to display a banners saying ‘Rodgers out Rafa In’ during a recent game in May.
David Moyes
Joint second favourite in the bookies list remains David Moyes, despite him appearing to count himself out of a move away from Real Sociedad. “There’s always speculation, but I’m here to do the job,” Moyes told The Guardian. "I’m going to be here. I want to try to get everything in place so we can be at our best for the start of next season.
I don’t think we need masses and masses, but there are improvements I’d like to make, things I want to change. Small things that will help. And if we do that. “I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere.”
His words have not stopped him being linked with the Sunderland manager’s job in the past 24 hours and Darren Lewis from the Daily Mirror suggests this morning that West Ham might be able to lure Moyes away suggesting “West Ham have not given up on landing David Moyes as a replacement for Sam Allardyce.”
Slaven Bilic
The other joint second favourite is Slaven Bilic priced at 4/1 by many bookies.
The former Hammer revealed he expects Besiktas to let him leave this summer after taking charge in the summer of 2013. He told TV cameras : “My intention was to stay here. Now I don’t know if this is possible. The responsibility for the defeats is all mine, I am going to sit down with the management. But I know how football works, especially in Turkey. I don’t see myself being given a chance to manage Besiktas next season". The Croatian, who has also managed Lokomotiv Moscow, Hajduk Split and the Croatian national team, spent eighteen months as a Hammer before moving on to Everton in 1997.
Besiktas have released a statement on their website this afternoon denying rumours that head coach Slaven Bilic has been sacked.
The statement read: “Rumours that Besiktas have sacked Slaven Bilic are false, the board will hold a board meeting today.”
Jurgen Klopp
Reports on social media claimed yesterday Klopp will sign a three-year deal with Real Madrid worth 8 million euros per year. The report has since been discredited but the manager was photographed in Turkey earlier this week when it is claimed he held talks with Fenerbahce. Yesterday the Daily Express reported that former Chelsea man Michael Ballack has backed Jurgen Klopp to be working in the Premier League next season suggesting Machester City or Liverpool would be a good fit.
According to The Mirror, West Ham’s hierarchy made an audacious approach to try and lure Klopp to the Hammers next season, after he announced his resignation as Borussia Dortmund head coach and will leave the Bundesliga club at the end of the season. Sources close to the club say he hasn’t rejected an approach but equally he hasn’t openly engaged in talks. Klopp will only talk to potential clubs at the end of the season.
Michael Laudrup
Seen as a plan B by many if other primary managerial targets turn West Ham down. The man himself seemed to distance himself away from a move to the Hammers yesterday after being quoted in the media.
He told Spanish newspaper Marca: “It’s a time when many rumours appear, but there is nothing concrete. I am in the process of renewing [my contract] with Lekhwiya, they want me here. I will decide it in two weeks.“I am not going to accept an offer from a mid-table club in England or Spain. They are experiences that I have already lived and, at this stage of my life as a coach, I look for new things. If a big club comes [calling], I will not say no to them, but I would like to try [coaching] in the United States if not given the opportunity.”
Marcelo Bielsa
Back in March the Daily Mirror claimed that Marcelo Bielsa was on West Ham’s radar. He has been labelled “the best coach on the planet” by Pep Guardiola and his attacking philosophy would bring a new edge to the Premier League. Bielsa is has been doing well in charge of Marseille this season, but his contract situation in France beyond this season remains unclear. The rumours have resurfaced in the last few days but his lack of English language and experience of the Premier League would make him a bigger gamble for the board.
Frank de Boer
De Boer is another name who claimed to have been targeted by the Hammers in recent days. De Boer is currently in charge of Ajax, and this is the first season since 2010 in which he has claimed no silverware. Four successive Eredivisie titles have been won in his reign – something never done before in the Netherlands – whilst he also claimed the Johan Cruijff Shield in 2013. De Boer is a young, progressive manager who plays attacking, stylish football. He has a proven record of bringing youth players through into the first-team set-up, and has experience of the European football.
Eddie Howe
Eddie Howe’s success in getting Bournemouth promoted to the Premier League has made the thirty-seven year old one of the hottest managerial prospect around.
He is thought to be another name in a backup list of potential managerial candidates.
A club source recently told Claret and Hugh “We have two lists of candidates – and he is top of List two. It may just be too early but he is among the runners for certain.”
Bournemouth would be reluctant to give up their manager in their first season in the big time.
Mark Warburton
Outgoing Brentford manager Mark Warburton is another surprise candidate to be linked by the media. Warburton will leave Brentford at the end of the season, despite leading them into the play-offs this year. He could be another manager on list two but would be seen as a massive gamble. Bookies still believe he has a chance and he is priced joint fifth favourite with Eddie How at 20/1.
Carlo Ancelotti
Possibly my favourite rumour has been Real Madrid’s Ancelotti based comments he made about West Ham four years ago. In 2011 Ancelotti said: ‘I would coach West Ham – why not? It’s a challenge to manage a team in the Championship.The atmosphere at West Ham is amazing. It doesn’t matter if you manage a top team or a smaller team.
It’s more important to work. I was happy to train in the second division when I was learning. When you manage, you don’t think about the money. It has never been a motivation for me."
However somethings are stranger than fiction. I understand Ancelotti was approached by a text message but no reply was received.
The others
Steve McLaren was briefly linked to the West Ham manager job by ESPN earlier this month but West Ham insiders quickly dismissed the suggestion saying there had been no contact and he was not on a list. Glenn Hoddle was also ruled out by Hammers chiefs despite being linked to West Ham for some time. Harry Redknapp is another name far from any list with neither side keen to rekindle days gone by. Today the Sun reported a new name, claiming Werder Bremen’s Ukrainian coach Viktor Skrypnyk was on the wanted list but again this was quickly dismissed by sources close to West Ham as rubbish.
Other names mentioned to be in manager frame without much foundation are Juande Ramos Unai Emery Aitor Karamka Gus Poyet Brendan Rodgers Dieter Hecking Neil Lennon and Roberto Di Matteo
Are you still keeping up? Well we should all know in less than 144 hours. What will the papers, websites, blogs and forums have to write about next?
