Sam Allardyce will have to convince the West Ham board he can win back the club’s deeply disgruntled fans if he’s to have a chance of keeping his Upton Park job!
Allardyce faces the biggest grilling of his life at co-chairman and chief shareholder David Sullivan’s Essex mansion (ABOVE) when this week’s critical board meeting into his future goes ahead.
And ClaretandHugh has exclusively learned that the No 1 item on the agenda is the 59 year old’s shocking relationship with the club’s fans.
The co owners have even placed it above the continuing attacks on the “dross” and “highly predictable Route One” football which has drawn non stop criticism over recent weeks.
Co owners David Sullivan and David Gold have also been astonished at comments attributed to Big Sam that his ambitions at the club are bigger than their own for the Hammers.
The long awaited meeting to assess the events of the season will take the form of a question and answer session with the manager being probed on events throughout the campaign.
And unless the hard-nosed boss can convince the board he’s capable of raising the sort of charm offensive to win back the supporters he’s set to become “toast.”
A source told us: “The clear discontent between the manager and the fans is of grave concern. That is the main issue to be addressed.
“The view is the football can be corrected with – for example – Ravel Morrison coming back and settling down.
“His presence in the team changes everything. There will also be new quality players brought in.
“That’s not so much an issue. It’s the problems Sam has with the fans and his attitude towards them which has to be solved.
If the board doesn’t get the right answers to those difficulties the likely outcome is that there will be a parting of the ways.”
