Ian Wright takes swipe at West Ham board and delivers his verdict on Slaven Bilic situation

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Former West Ham United striker Ian Wright has been discussing the situation surrounding Slaven Bilic at his old club.

Bilic has been under intense pressure this season after losing his opening three Premier League games and having a public spat with the club’s owners.

He was also upset that he offloaded a number of first team players in order to bring in Portugal midfield duo William Carvalho and Andre Gomes – deals he believed were all but done – only to see the club fail to deliver.

The fallout from West Ham’s failure to land Carvalho has been embarrassing for co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold and painful for fans to watch.

The pressure has eased somewhat after the Hammers won their first league game of the season 2-0 against Huddersfield last time out.

But despite the result many supporters still has reservations over both Bilic and the board.

And Ian Wright told Sky Sports’ The Debate show he knows who he blames.

“He seems to always be under pressure for some reason Slav,” Wright told The Debate.

“It is results, it does come down to results but the fact is every now and then you’ll hear the board (speak out) and (the press) will link them with someone else.

“I heard them linking with the Fulham manager (Slavisa Jokanovic – as reported by the likes of Sky Sports) and you think to yourself ‘How can they do that to him, he’s still in the job, he’s still trying to get it going’.

“He’ll lose a couple of games and then all of a sudden ‘He’s got one more game or he’s out’ and they were saying the same about (the Huddersfield) game.

“I was quite pleased Slav turned that around because they put in quite a good performance… I’ve got quite a lot of affection for Slav to be honest and I know how much it means to him West Ham and how much he wants to do well.”

Wright and Bilic’s relationship blossomed when they appeared as guests on ITV’s memorable coverage of Euro 2016 when the Croatian famously climbed on the table to celebrate one of Dimitri Payet’s goals for France.

It speaks volumes that former players like Wright, Tony Gale and Tony Cottee continue to back the manager while players like Mark Noble, Andy Carroll and James Collins have also publicly backed Bilic.