Slaven Bilic will need to wait until January or summer of next year to discover whether he will get a new deal from the West Ham board.
He needs a top ten finish to ENSURE he remains in charge at the end of this term but only a complete collapse of results will see him fired.
The Irons board had targeted a top eight finish but with that position 10 points away, and tenth achievable, the board are eyeing that as their major target.
A key Hammers insider told us: “It’s a case of waiting and seeing because two or three results can change an awful lot.”
The LS factor, injuries and Dimi Payet saga have all contributed toward this season’s slide and allowances made but were it to continue down to around 15th or 16th place – we are currently 12th -Slaven would be on thin ice.
With Roberto Mancini very much on the sidelines, Slav knows that beating Hull is a massive game given that we are on a joint points total of 33 with Southampton – who have played two games less than us – and Bournemouth.
The Saints and The Cherries meet in the next League clash which will give the Irons a chance of leap frogging one of the other.
Quite right too. Precisely what I said below. The new contract will stay in Sullivan’s drawer until January 2018 and rightly so. Slav is under a lot of pressure and for what it’s worth I’ve not seen a better summing up of the situation than Daz’s on the Wetlands. We signed what appeared on the face of it some talent in the summer but for some reason our coaching staff have made those players crap. Training intensity? Tactics? Players out of position? I dunno maybe all of those but Slaven, as much as I love him, has a lot to prove.
We shouldn’t gloss over season one btw. As amazing as it was, top 4 was not achieved because of some right horror shows. Bournmonth and Leicester at home at the beginning of the season and Stoke and Swansea at the end stand out but remember also those matches where we were 2 down in the first half and came storming back. Everton and Sunderland spring to mind but there were others.
Yes our attacking intensity and creativety last season papered over poor defending cracks. This is the 2nd season of shipping soft goals not the first and that’s my worry, as a Manager he should have worked on putting it right in the summer or since. For some reason he didn’t see the problem or horror of horrors saw an out of position Antonio as the answer, didn’t recruit accordingly. So strategically he has failed and day to day why oh why do we need to be two goals down before we start playing, for some reason he can’t get them up for the kick off. I so want him to be successful and our manager for years to come but this cannot go on.