Danny Murphy is the latest former pro to slam Nikicia Jelavic declaring: “He’s not good enough to start for West Ham.”
Perhaps the most fair minded and balanced of the Match of the Day pundits said brutally: He (West Ham manager Slaven Bilic) is playing Jelavic. With no disrespect, his legs have gone, by the way.”
Thirty-year-old Jelavic was also slammed by Ian Wright and the fans fury has been clear to see on the forums after Sunday’s match against Swansea.
He was bought for £2 million on deadline day in the summer as the Irons completed their spending spree with swoops for him and Michail Antonio.
I was hoping that Bilic would play some youngsters this season. He is proving to be as bad as fat Sam at doing that.
Danny Murphy is normally one of the better pundits out there, but this opinion of his is way over the top and harsh.
He does not deserve this treatment,Danny was a journeyman never very talented himself
And has no need to have a pop at a player trying his best in a team struggling for form,
£2 million is nada and he is performing just as well as Nolan,Cole ,Nene Jarvis,
Carroll has twice as much playing time and scored once and created nada,
We know there are better players out there but they play for other sides those that don’t most fans don’t want,
When Sakho returns Moses ,Carroll and Payet he will not get a look in,if Slav had played Lee you would have said the same,
Murphy wants to watch the spuds and wonder what they would do if Kane,Ali,Demeble,
And a couple of others get injured up front what he would do there,
He could ask Keown who would just say it was a dive or hand ball or something else not worth printing,
Whighty has the right to have a pop he was a class CF and from our club just like Leroy
But the others just want to twist the knife
I think the bashing of him has been unfair, he wasn’t great against Swansea but then aside from defensively not many of the team were. What I saw was him running down defenders with more enthusiasm than most especially in the first half but nobody in a West Ham shirt was anywhere near him to help him close down from the front and that ran on for the entire game. He is a reserve striker and should be judged as such but is still for some reason being judged as though he is our first choice by the media, in terms of the amount of effort he put in I would rate him highly unfortunately he is slow now and needs players to be close at hand to help, the way we pressured the ball was atrocious especially in the first half, Swansea were there for the taking as were West Brom and Man U all games we should have taken 3 points from, Bilic should start showing the players videos of Watford, Leicester and even though it pains me to say it Tottenscum, if the players are not willing to work as a team to close the ball down then more 0 0 bore draws are on the cards. Looks to me as though after scoring each game and conceding each game we have since tightened up defensively but are not now committing enough men forward to be more of an offensive threat, caught in between two stalls, I still think we need a 20 – 25 goal a season striker or alternatively play Valencia more centrally in the number 10 slot, he is wasted wide left we are only seeing about 25% of what he is capable of and virtually no goals.
Spot on..
And it was his first start/full 90.
Oh dear, it’s turning into a bad news day – the MOTD guys are talking sense for once – Danny Murphy is definitely their best pundit and talks real sense!
Jelavic was good at Rangers and initially at Everton, I’m not sure what happened, whether it was injury or what but his form virtually collapsed at Everton and he became a peripheral figure, he moved on to Hull where his bad form just continued.
Why West Ham bought him I have no idea – I suspect it might have something to do with him being a compatriot of Bilic’s, which is not a good starting point.
He’s definitely not up to the Premiership standard – in fact it’s more than a bit embarassing – it’s a shambles!
….. i’ve just been looking him up on Soccerbase and teams have paid a total of £18.8 million that we know of :
West Ham £2,800,000
Hull £6,500,000
Everton £5,500,000
Rangers £4,000,000
plus some other moves where the fees involved are not known – incredible!