Following on from yesterdays look at our love/hate relationships with our managers since the start of the Premier League CandH top blogger SIMON LEYLAND looks at three more today.
Glenn Roeder
This was the man who was responsible for relegating a talented West Ham squad – and possibly the most talented collection of players EVER to slip out of the Premier League.
But his first season was pretty good ,even if it did begin with humbling defeats against Everton (5-0) and Blackburn (7-1). He introduced Jermain Defoe into the first team, won a league game at Old Trafford, gave Joe Cole the armband, fell out with Di Canio and later handed Glen Johnson his debut.
Gianfranco Zola
Do you remember that for one whole season we had the rare situation of a likeable boss and a group of young talents actually succeeding on the pitch?
Jack Collison, James Tomkins and Freddie Sears all played a dozen times or more as Zola led West Ham to a top-half finish in 2008-09, but the following season was a car crash and the club could not have complained if their final tally of only 35 points would have seen them relegated.
Alan Pardew
Yes, he led West Ham to an FA Cup final and a top-half finish, but he also set the team on course for relegation in the following season before being sacked after a 4-0 defeat to a Bolton team that didn’t win another game by more than two all season.
He also came close to botching not one but two promotion campaigns, ultimately sneaking a 1-0 win against Preston after leaving it late to even make the 2004-05 play-offs, relying on his former club Reading losing each of their last three games.
There’s an argument that he would have kept things going in the 2006-07 campaign if he had a fit Dean Ashton at his disposal. However, based on Pardew’s record at every other club he’s managed since… I don`t really think so.