West Ham United are enduring a torrid season with fingers being pointed in all directions including the manager Slaven Bilic.
Slaven Bilic‘s side have lost eight of their opening 13 Premier League matches and look set for an unexpected relegation battle.
Fans have been at each other’s throats over issues at their new 60,000 seater Olympic Stadium home and a toxic atmosphere is starting to fester at West Ham as fans grow increasingly fed up.
The Hammers were also dumped out of the Europa League by Romanian side Astra Giurgiu for the second season running back in August.
Things don’t look like getting any easier either with a trip to title hopefuls Liverpool looming this Sunday.
West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic
Sections of West Ham’s support are starting to turn on the manager, with forums and social media awash with calls for a change to save the club from the threat of relegation.
The majority of fans are still with the manager, though, blaming the board instead for the club’s troubles.
Ask any West Ham fan where things have gone wrong this season and they will point to some terrible transfer business in the summer as the root cause.
After a fantastic farewell season at Upton Park where the Hammers recorded their best ever Premier League points total everyone was in agreement that Bilic’s squad just need slight tweaking.
Three or four quality signings to add to the likes of Dimitri Payet, Manuel Lanzini and co.
Instead West Ham signed 13 players, 10 for the first team, and only one – Edimilson Fernandes – has been anything like a success.
The likes of Gokhan Tore, Havard Nordtveit, Alvaro Arbeloa, Sofiane Feghouli and Simone Zaza are woefully short of the quality required in the Premier League, let alone to push on to the next level.
West Ham co-owner David Sullivan
Supporters argue the board is to blame with co-owner David Sullivan and chief talent spotter Tony Henry leading the way on player recruitment.
But as affable and honest as Bilic is, as good a manager as he is, as perfect as he seems for the Hammers, the fact of the matter is that he is as culpable as Sullivan and Henry for ever agreeing to that transfer process in the first place.
There is nothing to suggest West Ham’s business would be better if Bilic was solely responsible for it.
Take Tore for example, a player Bilic reportedly wanted permanently having managed him at former club Besiktas.
Under pressure: Bilic
Besiktas wanted as much as £13 million but West Ham’s board insisted on a loan deal with an option to buy, which turns out was probably the best thing they did in the summer market given how poor the Turkish midfielder has been.
Like it or not the buck stops with Bilic and he should have taken a stronger stance over transfers from the beginning so that if things did go wrong he knew he only had himself to blame.
It was foolish to agree to the transfer committee in the first place and where the club got it so right last season, this term a clutch of poor signings means Bilic’s acceptance of those terms is coming home to roost.
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