The pressure is mounting on West Ham United manager Manuel Pellegrini.
Rafa Benitez has defended Manuel Pellegrini and insisted that he shouldn’t be sacked, as the pressure mounts on the under-fire West Ham manager.
Former Premier League boss, Benitez claimed that West Ham are a team that should be in the top 10, but instead, they are currently hovering one point and two places above the relegation zone.
The Hammers suffered a 3-1 defeat at home to Arsenal last night despite taking the lead against a team that hasn’t won a game in two months.
Speaking to Monday Night Football on Sky Sports (09/12/19 at 10:30 pm), Benitez commented on West Ham’s current situation under Pellegrini.
On whether there is an overreaction to West Ham’s poor situation and where they should be: “There are two or three teams that they could normally be at the top of the table, at the top ten, and West Ham because of what they did last season normally have to be in the top ten,” Benitez told Sky Sports.
“How close to the top-six? That was the idea last season. I think they have to be in this group of top 10. I think that Pellegrini is a great manager. I think that he can fix the problems.
On whether Pellegrini is suited to the battle West Ham currently find themselves in: “He has the experience to do it. It’s not a case of you have to change the manager because this manager is not good enough. It’s because sometimes they [owners] say, ‘Oh, I am really scared because we can go down, I have to change something’.
“It’s always easier to change the manager. It’s not right in a lot of situations. In this case, he has the experience. I think he can do it. One important thing is that they create a team for him. In the last two years, he was signing the kind of players he wanted. He is the one who has the best chances to get the best from these players.”
Aside from results and performances this season, there are other factors that don’t help Pellegrini’s cause, with one of them being that he has been backed in the transfer market.
Added with that, other teams in the Premier League have acted and fired managers who are seemingly under-performing at their club – Arsenal, Everton, Watford (twice) and Tottenham.
The calls for Pellegrini will only get louder if they drop more points at the weekend because if other results go against them then they could fall into the bottom three.
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