Fulham manager Marco Silva was last night described to me as “the right man to take over West Ham.”
The comment came from someone who has worked closely with the club in the past. When I suggested that the Hammers board might be reluctant to pay Silva’s sizeable compensation clause, the reply was blunt:
“It’s not too much if he’s the right man.”
David Sullivan is unlikely to pay compensation for West Ham’s next manager.
For those unaware, the Portuguese coach has a buyout clause of between £8–10m in his Craven Cottage contract. Silva was a leading candidate to succeed both David Moyes and Julen Lopetegui, but on both occasions West Ham went for the cheaper option. In short, they opted for the budget choice rather than the best man for the job.
The folly of bargain-hunting has now been laid bare. West Ham will need to pay Graham Potter over £3m to terminate his contract, on top of the £3.6m severance package handed to Lopetegui—not including staff payouts. Factor in the £1m buyout clause paid to Chelsea for Kyle Macaulay, and you see the point: the club will have spent as much on failed appointments than it would have cost to hire Silva in the first place.
Whether the Hammers board have learned their lesson is doubtful. My understanding is that Silva remains a top choice for the role—but I won’t be holding my breath.
Obvious flaw with Sullivan’s wish list of EPL experience and unemployed, is that the likelihood they’re unemployed is because they failed
There’s going to be the odd exception of course but generally they’ll be sh*t
Can’t he look at Chelsea, Bournemouth, Brighton etc and see what they’ve done vs what he keeps doing?
Must be someone out there worth a punt?
Silva is overhyped. He has not achievdd anything at our level or shown that he can handle a massive club.
Just run of the mill mediocrity.
Not worth paying extra for this guy.
It just buggers belief. They honestly have no idea.
How much did we spend on JWD, Kilman etc?
How much have we wasted on different strikers over the years?
Surely the manager is the most important member of the team.
Yet the owners won’t get the best manager for the job, oh no they want the cheapest. In fact they almost brag about the fact they won’t pay compensation.
In Potter’s defence, preseason, he seemed to make the right moves – he worked on a new system which it was looking like the team were understanding (though in reality probably not suitable for the Premier League). Hiring was good (albeit badly timed, likely not his fault) Diouf looks a class buy, as does Fernandes. KWP, great pick up. Hermansen and Magassa look good on paper. Got rid of moody Kudus, clearly angled to do the same with Alvarez for same reason. Training looked upbeat and “togethnessy”.
Then he went and threw Hermansen into game 1 when the poor bloke probably didnt even know his defender’s names yet, decided that lightweight, “anywhere but West Ham Aguerd” and “shall i walk or saunter today Todibo” was the answer to our defence, disappeared Potts who’d been looking a solid shout in preseason and insisted on playing JWP, Rodrigues and Soucek (who I bloody love and think has a place but needs certain skills around him if he is to be effective).
Couple of big bad losses, confidence knocked again, crowd support mode at toxic every home game and here we are looking for another saviour. I actually think he could’ve cracked it but he gambled on literally the whole backbone of the team (goalie, average centre halves, average centre mids, no fully fit proper striker), probably picking based on their attitude or training rather than actual game performance.
If we miraculously bought at least 1 really strong centre half and a new fast striker and played some of our stronger more energetic midfielders, I actually think Potter would probably do just fine. But he’s made his own bad luck due to making the wrong selection choices so, unless he does something drastically different style and selection wise over the next two games, lets move on and see what the next guy can do. Counter attacking wont work without a striker though.
Why would Marco Silva want to take a step down to West Ham?
Well we never spend the Aguerd money or Emerson did we?
Does anyone think that Marco Silva would risk his career by leaving Fulham to join West Ham? After all, he’s doing quite nicely at Craven Cottage now, and he might see the Hammers as a similar high expectancy risk to that of the Everton job he had. As much as I think he might be worth us enquiring about, I can’t see him being up for such a risky job.
As my old ma in law used to say. Sully is all “fur coat and no knickers”
I have said it before .
Apart from the fans the most important person at a football club is the manager .
If you get the right manager everything else slots into place .
Better football , better atmosphere, better players , better position in the league etc etc ….
It’s really not rocket science!!
I’m so sick and tired of the cheapness, tackiness, and incompetence of our board.
They’re absolutely two bob. They couldn’t be any worse if they tried.
“Next level”.
Go and get Silva, stop sodding around.
Looking at Fulham’s bench the other day, most would walk into our starting eleven.
The fans won’t tolerate some second rate clown this time around, Sullivan thinks he’s being clever but he’s costing us financially and on the pitch.
NB: Site keeps crashing, my post was longer than above but third time I’ve tried.
Not sure if anybody else having issues ?
Yes have already commented on it but remains the same.
Whilst the article is logical……just ask yourself “What currently employed manager in his right mind would even consider the WHU job?” Who consider working with a meddling chairman? This is the message that our minority shareholders have to take on board and rectify!
Let’s hop we go for the best manager for the job not the cheapest.
That has cost us many time in transfers not willing to pay the price asked for a descent player and go for a cheap under performing player who can’t make the team
Come on West Ham board get the best person for the job and maybe try and slowly build this club back to where it should be
Come on you Irons
Totally agree with BBBUDGIE BRYNE, what manager in their right mind would want to come to this circus of a club? ( and that’s doing circuses a disservice) , sorry but this club I have supported for 60 years hasn’t reached the bottom yet! Yes it can and will get worse unfortunately. Maybe one day it will be run by a honest person who genuinely wants the club to succeed who knows? Of course this is just my opinion, but I may not be far from the truth , who knows.
Typical of the way this inept board is running our club. We are slowly slipping further into ruination. Please God things improve soon, surely they can’t get worse!!