Guest Post by Ben Smith
The job of any football manager is to ensure that he leaves the club in a better position than he found it. Whatever your personal thoughts and opinions of Sam Allardyce no body can deny that he achieved this. After taking over a team newly relegated to the Championship he got West Ham back in to the Premier League at the first attempt admittedly not with the style and panache the majority of us would like. However there is no doubt that this achievement helped starve off financial Armageddon. When you bear in mind the problems the likes of former Premier League sides such as Portsmouth, Blackburn Rovers, Leeds United and Leicester City have encountered then this achievement is not to be sniffed at.
After a very creditable 10th place finish on their return to the Premier League he consolidated West Ham’s Premier League status with 13th and 12th place finishes, again achievements not to be glossed over. To the outsider many would call that success for a club of our size. I wouldn’t necessarily endorse that view as although I am not privy to the playing or staffing budget at the club I would imagine West Ham would have run a top 8/10 budget last season. If we assume that is the case and, even if that isn’t true, I think the majority of us would agree that West Ham are carrying a bigger payroll than the likes of Swansea City and Southampton.
However, that debate is for another day. As Sam Allardyce so modestly stated in The Sun a couple of weeks ago he has left the club in a decent position to build and progress in the near future. The question I am posing is this: Is Slaven Bilic the right man to build on these solid foundations and create an exciting, attractive and exuberant team to take the club into the Olympic Stadium?
If we are going to fill 54,000 seats every fortnight there is a huge responsibility on the manager to excite the supporters and give them the style of play they have craved so much over the last few years.
Slaven Bilic is something of a cult hero to a lot of Hammers fans during his relatively short spell at the club. Obviously without wishing to denigrate his achievements I’m not sure 48 Premier League appearances in 18 months makes you a legend. However, I do appreciate that the fact he delayed his move to Everton until we had ensured our Premier League survival will have endeared him to our supporters.
When you initially look at his managerial career it looks pretty impressive. He skilfully managed a very talented Croatia team to two European Championship finals and narrowly missed out on qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.
However the jury is out on his record as a club manager. After Croatia he moved on to Lokomotiv Moscow where he presided over their lowest finish, which was ninth, since the forming of the new Russian League in 1992. This was followed up with 2 years in Turkey managing Besiktas. Similar to many European leagues the Turkish ‘Super Lig’ is dominated by three teams. The aforementioned Besiktas, Galatasary and Fenerbache. He failed to wrestle the title from these two and also missed out on a Champions League place for the 2015/16 season.
However dig a little deeper and there were some mitigating circumstances. During his two-year tenure not once did Bilic manage a conventional ‘home’ game. Besiktas BJK Inonu Stadyumu has been renovated for the last 2 years and they have been forced to play all home games over 300km away.
Much like the West Ham way Besiktas also managed to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory in the 2014/15 season leading the Championship with just 5 weeks of the season remaining before capitulating to finish eight points behind eventual champions Galatasary.
My argument is this, if West Ham appointed a foreign manager with a similar record but no connections to the club would the supporters be as enamoured as they are now?
Have Messrs Gold, Sullivan played to the crowd and given the people what they want rather than what they need? Bilic is known for being very charismatic and willing to engage with the fan base. Not a bad man to have in charge when you are leading a huge drive to attract more people to a new stadium.
Some may argue the Bilic was the best candidate for the manager’s job. There were a lot of names being mentioned which were, in my opinion, unrealistic. I don’t think anyone really thought Rafa Benitez (although I wouldn’t have personally wanted him), Carlo Ancellotti or Jurgen Klopp would come to West Ham.
When you take away these names Bilic was arguably as good as any and definitely the most marketable. My preference would have been Marcelo Bielsa although probably not recognisable enough to the layman this is a man who has built up a reputation over a number of years of playing aggressive, attractive and intelligent football a perfect fit for the Hammers. He is also Pep Guardiolas mentor, which is not a bad endorsement.
A good alternative for me would have been Gus Poyet. He created an excellent footballing side at Brighton although didn’t quite have the same success at Sunderland. Although bearing in mind his playing history I am not sure how much sympathy there would have been for him if results suffered.
All of this is not to say that I cannot see the thought behind this appointment. I hope as much as the next man that Slaven goes on to have a very successful career at West Ham and gets the team playing the type of fluid exciting football the club has craved.
I would just argue that if you took away those 48 Premier League appearances in the mid 1990’s I’m not sure his CV would have got him anywhere near the job.
Time will tell….
*Ben Smith is a West Ham fan and played professional football for Crawley, Yeovil, Hereford and many other lower league teams. He currently coaches at Brighton and has written a bestselling book called JOURNEYMAN: One Man’s Odyssey Through the Lower Leagues of English Football. You can buy it for only £8.99 HERE