Trevor Sinclair has pointed the finger straight at criticised Slaven Bilic for the club’s disappointing start to the new season.
And speaking on The Premier League show he insists if West Ham don’t start picking up points quickly, the move to the London Stadium could prove disastrous.
Sinclair said: ‘It’s clear West Ham are not defending as well as last season. That needs to change but the players don’t turn into bad players overnight, so who do you look at. You’ve got to look at the manager.
‘(He was) very entertaining over the summer covering the Euros, should he have been concentrating on the recruitment, which has not been great this season?
‘You look at the next three games, huge games. If they don’t start putting points on the board, this dream move to the London Stadium could turn into a nightmare.’
Sinclair also stated that at the same stage last season, West Ham had covered plenty more ground.
‘An interesting fact, this stage last season, West Ham were fifth in distance covered (791km), this time round they are 13th (756km). Are they as fit, are they working as hard, I’m not so sure.’
I agree with the comments apart from Bilic being solely to blame, the stats in our case do tell the story, not only is distance covered down, I had us at 15th not 13th but either way they also show us way down on tackles, interceptions, key passes, shots and goals, I have listened to Bilic before the season, saying that being in a new stadium will not make us a big club or earn us a single point, telling the players they have to remember to do the things that got them where they were last season and in Antonio’s case a call up, to go back to basics, his assessments of the way games have gone and the reasons for failure and then his lack of understanding of why the players were making the mistakes etc. I think he has been trying to get the players to do the right things but they haven’t been doing it, where he has been responsible is team selection on a few occaisions and continually playing Kouyate, Noble and Adrian when they have not been performing, if he had been brutal with them after the first 3 games maybe we would have been in a better place but its easy for us to be wise in hindsight, I am still confident in him and hope he makes some brave decisions and learns and teh team respond and all start manning up and doing their thing COYI !!!!
P.S. To anyone who watched the show the much more interesting interview was the one with Pochettino, who quite correctly blamed his sides mentality on why they blew the title, they choked which we all enjoyed although he didn’t say that, but they did go on about his double training sessions. Imo that is the way we should go the same as most continental teams, I personally don’t think Pochettino is tactically that good a coach, he has mastered the pressing game and posession, but rarely do the Spuds cut teams apart like a Guardiola team, they win games based on grinding their opponents into the ground and hope to capitalise on mistakes as the players get tired, which is demonstrated by the amount of late goals they score in each half, they move the ball as quickly as a Pep team with 1 and 2 touch passes and good movement but they don’t make as many key passes in the final third, also like Pep teams they try to defend by keeping the ball as high up the field as possible.
But were Spuds failings at the end of the season down to them being totally burnt out because of this style of play & double training sessions as well.I seem to remember Ranieri being the total opposite.Two full days off & one or perhaps two daily sessions.
I dont know 32 im no expert but there must be more than one winning formula.Soon we will find it & be flying.I hope anyway lol
Personally I didn’t think so Rick, I have a brother and a whole load of mates that are spuds supporters so I watch them fairly closely so as to wind them up as often as possible 😀 and to give it back when they return the compliment, this is why I said most of last season Spurs weren’t anything special they were just fitter than other teams, there endurance was better and they got the rewards late in each games most of the time against stubborn opposition, they are playing better this season to be fair to them but still they are not making many clear chances from those short passes into space behind defenders which a Barcelona or a City under Pep are likely to do. Thats my opinion of them all be it from my claret and blue specs 😀
It’s never the players fault Essex should know that by now 🙂 But don’t worry weetabix ankles will grace us with his presence for a couple of games soon just before his Xmas break.
So the seeds of doubt have been sown already with Bilic. How long will it be until the ‘Bilic out’ BS starts. Do people really think that his team talk goes “ok lads go & play like you don’t give ****” or are the players letting him down big time? Most of the team are the same players as last season.
the buck always stops with the manager. If the players are letting him down it means he’s not the right manager for the job, and you need a manager who the players will play for. Simples. The team might be similar to last season (apart from some of the flops he signed in the summer) but teams have found him out. The questions is, can he rectify that? We will find out in the next few games. My guess is Bilic’s time is running out.
The players do look a bit lacklustre, some more than others.Antonio looks like he could run all day,but Noble looks short of something? I can’t work out if its under or over training or something completely different. If it was another side I’d say the manager’s lost the changing room.COYI
True, there does seem to be something missing – the performances have been lethargic and disjointed. Apparently the stats show that the Team are not working as hard as other teams and that’s got to be down to Bilic and his Coaches.
Spot on – Bilic has definitely not had his eye on the ball, I enjoyed his performance as a pundit at the Euros but never thought that he should really have been doing his job as West Ham Manager but that’s right he should have been concentrating on recruitment and the Season to come.