Slaven Bilic looks entirely safe in his position despite the team’s uncertain start to the season.
The bookies had him at near odds on for the sack a month ago but he is now priced at 11/1 against the bullet with some firms.
And ClaretandHugh has been told by club insiders that he will oversee the winter transfer window plus deciding on the future of the club’s loan players.
Skybet have him behind David Moyes (6/4), Bob Bradley (2/1), Alan Pardew (11/2) and Mike Phelan (7/1) in their sack race and the club are confident he can pull their fortunes around.
A source at the club said: “This was always going to be a difficult season and the owners – as is well known – are not people who sack easily.
“Slaven has important players coming back and will be given plenty of time since he started to turn things around. The bookies odds are probably too short against him being sacked – 20/1 would be more realistic.”
No surprise to see Moyes there but is a surprise to see Pardew in the list. Our chairmen rarely sack managers during the season which turned out to be a bad move with Avram but has worked well otherwise. They are also sensible enough to realise this is a transitional season, a lot for Slav will depend on how we do towards the end of the season I suspect, if they can see this young team improving and if we were to win a cup or two 🙂 things would look a lot better. If however we stay struggling for the whole season and don’t look like genuine contenders for Europe for next season he will probably be replaced in the summer.
Can not see us being contenders for Europe this season and i wouldnt put my money down based on that. Well for him going should we not.
I think qualifying this time was handled wrongly, bought too many average players instead of three or four quality. All to compete. Me i would have left it to fate.
It’s all about the quality of the players, our Squad is thin and was not improved by the Summer Transfer Window, we’ve still got problems with the attack and at right-back/right wing-back – Bilic has got to cull the squad of the rubbish that came in this summer and has his work cut out!
The saving grace is that Sunderland, Swansea and Hull have worse squads than us but it’s going to be touch and go this Season – relegation is a real possiblility, it would only need a couple of things to go against us for it all to go wrong!
He hasn’t seemed right himself in any of his interviews this season though…..
I think he has to learn to stop relying on his favourites and try something new, no point flogging a dead horse. Better to try something that might work than something that hasnt for a while.
I think that had this been any other season he would not be on such rocky ground, but if he wants to keep his position he has to pull his finger out, The last thing those up top want is to see us in the Championship. And Sullivan has said he has learned by his mistakes.