By Tom Coles
It has not been a good start and Slaven Bilic remains in the firing line for the poor performances on the pitch.
The pressure has again been mounting but in recent weeks there are marginal signs he is slowly starting to turn things around.
The narrow 1-0 victory over Swansea last week was a vital three points and the board claim he has their backing.
But as we reported here yesterday it has not stopped the free bets and large wagers being placed on him to be the next manager to get the sack in the Premier League. The excuses are running out.
Bilic has entered his final year of his contract and unless things improve dramatically on the pitch he will not be offered a new deal.
Before the match against Swansea kicked off there were many rumours flying around that Bilic was going to get the boot if his side had not won.
It was not the most convincing win and yet soon after the match, the chairman and vice-chairman released a joint statement saying that they were fully committed to keeping Bilic and they intend on keeping him at the club.
The Hammers have moved up to 15th in the table after the win over Swansea. They are now on a run of games that has seen them pick up 7 points out of a possible 12. If they can support this current form they will soon be away from the danger zone.
It is not the type of form that will see them competing for a top-six finish though, which will disappoint the fans after the amount of money invested in the summer. If Bilic has any chance of getting his contract renewed at the end of the campaign, his team will need to finish in the top eight as a minimum requirement.
Last week the manager took a risk by taking off Javier Hernandez – and was booed by a large section of the fans – but it paid off. One thing is for certain is that the Croat is made of tough stuff and will not go out without a battle.
Please don’t even mention the possibility of a new contract! As far as I can see the only reason for him still being in charge is financial, & the fact that he would be cheap could tempt the owners to see if we can fly by the seat of our pants for another season. All the guff about CL/ the next level- what a joke. The recent results have saved his skin yet again, but the performances continue to be awful.
I’m not quite in agreement with you when you talk about the amount of money invested, i’m more disappointed with that amount. We have a squad that imho is very thin, lose a couple of players to injury & things start to look shaky. We sold/released so many players in the summer & didn’t bring enough in to replace them. A class defensive midfielder was badly needed & we kearnt nothing from prevous windows by putting all our efforts into one player & failed to get him through the door.
Everton have so far showed that throwing large amounts of money at slightly above average players doesn’t take you anywhere as we found out last season but without the spending.
Bilic picks the team & it’s him who sets the style of play so he has to take the main % of the blame for the results. How many other managers would still be in a PL position after the past 18 months at a club like ours? He has been in the hot seat for over two seasons now & we are no futher forward than we were with b4 he came so I believe that he should have gone at the end of last season. Supporting your manaģer is one thing if you can see progress but there hasn’t been any
Did I really read disappointed at not challenging top 6 with amount of money spent.hahahahaha 😂😂😂😂
Where are you reading that?
Second from last paragraph.
‘It is not the type of form that will see them competing for a top-six finish though, which will disappoint the fans after the amount of money invested in the summer.’