Jason Burt has written a brilliant feature for the Telegraph today about West Ham’s search for a new manager, but it’s an article that is really all about West Ham’s ambition. Read the full article HERE
Here’s a taster…
No one has quite woken up to just how big a move [the move to the Olympic Stadium] it is. The fact is it is very, very big.
West Ham are a London club who are underexploited in terms of what they can achieve. They have a healthy fan-base that can quickly grow and the new stadium, with its very good transport links and excellent infrastructure, will transform their finances and draw in new supporters. If they are successful.
The club could feasibly bid £30million for a player this summer as a statement of intent. It has been discussed. They are determined to make a concerted effort to break into the top six and, who knows, maybe even challenge for one of those Champions League places. Although the general public may be unaware of what might be happening, other clubs are not…
…It means that West Ham are – and should be – one of the most exciting projects in European football right now. There is pressure but not undue pressure. There is the chance for a confident coach to mould a club in his own image and drive it forward to be a new power.
But West Ham have to get that selection right. The club also knows that the criticism will come quickly if they do not secure a significant upgrade on Allardyce as manager and if that manager then does not hit the ground running…
…The ethos is this: the club want to be looking up the table to try to break into European competition on a regular basis, to usurp Tottenham Hotspur as the third power in London, and to stop the mentality of looking down the table to make sure that the ambition is simply to avoid relegation…
…It leaves them open to criticism. A poor start to next season will be immediately met with the accusation that they should have been careful what they wished for and really should have stuck with Allardyce. But that is not a dreamer’s mentality.
No one should criticise West Ham’s ambition. This is what sport is all about; it is its essence.
They have to get this appointment right and they know that. There is so much riding on it for them and the Premier League – and the hope that the rapidly-emerging cartel at the head of it can be broken. That ambition should be lauded.
The argument will rage over the ‘gift’ of the Olympic Stadium to West Ham, who are effectively paying a pittance for an arena that is being remodelled for them, but no one should carp at the emergence of a new player at football’s top table. Let us, instead, celebrate the ambition. If – and what a big if it is – only they make sure they hire the right manager.