Ray Houghton fires message to West Ham players and owners over Slaven Bilic

Follow us on Google Discover

Former West Ham United player Ray Houghton has been discussing Slaven Bilic’s situation.

West Ham are sitting precariously above the relegation zone with just two wins from the opening 10 games of the season.

They face another of Houghton’s old clubs Liverpool today with Bilic admitting he knows he must get something from the game to save his job.

Many supporters are frustrated the Croatian has survived this long while owners David Sullivan and David Gold have not helped the situation with their reluctance to act one way or the other by either extending Bilic’s contract or relieving him of his duties.

But Houghton told talkSPORT on Friday night that he feels Bilic is doing a good job all things considered.

“Slaven, I think, has done a decent job,” Houghton told talkSPORT.

“I think he’s had injury problems, you know (Manuel) Lanzini was out he’s just starting to come back, you know Andy Carroll’s been out and I think that affects them because he hasn’t got a like-for-like replacement so they’ve got to play a different way.

“Some of the older players haven’t really performed you know like Winston Reid who has been a rock for them the last few seasons, he’s had a poor start, so I think there’s good reason why things haven’t quite worked out for him.

“The style of play hasn’t been great but they really do need to start getting the fans behind them, the players have got to start working for each other everyday and every match – and I don’t think that’s always been the case either – but I think if they can do that they’ll start climbing the league.”

The Hammers know defeat to Liverpool could well leave them in the bottom three with daunting fixtures against the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City to come in the eight games after Liverpool’s visit.

Whatever Houghton thinks most fans and pundits are agreed that Bilic – no matter what the opinions on the board at West Ham – should be getting more out of the players he has available to him.