I’d been listening to an interview with Harry Redknapp earlier where he bemoaned the fact that there was no honesty in interviews by managers anymore. People always looking for the positives when there were none.
Well Slaven Bilic proved him wrong this evening with a frank post-match interview that has blown our season wide apart.
Normally managers have to be coaxed in to answers but from the first question Slaven was ready to talk and tell. He wasn’t going to stop until he said what he needed to get off his chest.
He looked a broken man. A man that was hurting deeply, and, as we were about to find out, wanted to let it be known where he felt our problems lay.
He said and I quote
“I’m not looking for excuses, you have injuries and mistakes but we were not good enough. It is a big disappointment, a big humiliation. I feel sorry for the fans and the club. We played some good games this season, and we had some good moments today, but we have to be honest and say that we don’t have the intensity. From the intensity comes the dedication and the quality, we don’t have it like we had it last year”
Then as the microphone was taken away for another question he carried on, he wasn’t finished venting his spleen….
“We don’t have it in games and we don’t have it enough even in training. That’s why we have it occasionally in games, and that is why we are so up and down, and in my opinion that is the main reason why we can’t do it for 90 minutes”
So, there you have it. We’ve been searching for the reasons why we are so poor this season. Slaven has laid the blame squarely at the players’ feet. He states they are not applying themselves either on match day or on the training ground.
Immediately after in the BT studio Ian Wright and Rio Ferdinand looked rightly shocked at what they had just heard. Rio said that if he were a West Ham Player he would take that as a personal insult.
Too damn right Rio. Our manager has just called the players out. He has basically said they are lazy and living on the achievements of last season.
If he is saying the players are under achieving in training, then we have no hope of putting in a performance in matches.
This is a man at the end of his tether (and possibly at the end of his job) who decided to come out fighting.
So, has he lost the dressing room? Or was he trying to snap his players in to action by calling them out in public?
Either scenario is deeply worrying. We either have players who have lost their drive and are too big for their boots, a manager not good enough to motivate them or both.
We are dangerously close to the bottom of the table and as Ian Wright pointed out other teams will now smell blood. They know something is wrong and will exploit it.
The 5-1 scoreline did not flatter Arsenal, it could have been 8 or 9.
Something has to change and it looks like it is a simple choice of either replacing the manager with one that can rouse this squad, or jettison the rotten apples and bring in fresh blood that will fight and scrap for the claret and blue jersey.
Not trying to be melodramatic but I think we can now safely say we are in crisis.
I feel this is not going to get better quickly. Prepare for a bumpy ride.
COYI