West Ham United have enjoyed a much brighter second-half of the season in the Premier League, and the Hammers board seem to recognise that.
West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic
A report from Sky Sports has suggested that West Ham are set to hand Slaven Bilic a new contract at the end of the season despite postponing talks towards the end of last year.
Bilic is coming to the end of the second year of his three-year deal, and plans had been mooted for fresh discussions near Christmas but those talks were shelved as the Hammers struggled in the first-half of the campaign and seemed to be in danger of getting dragged into a relegation battle.
However, Sky Sports are now suggesting that the Irons hierarchy are much happier with the Croatian in 2017 – as well as results improving, they were happy with how he coped with the situation surrounding Dimitri Payet during the January transfer window – and are now close to agreeing a deal with Bilic.
As mentioned, West Ham have enjoyed a much better run of form since mid-December. While they have still lost to the likes of Leicester, Manchester United and Manchester City in the Premier League, they have picked up six victories since being dismantled by Arsenal last year, and several of those wins have been extremely convincing.
That form has seen them move into the top-half of the table, only 11 points off the top seven – which is not too bad considering their start to the campaign – while relegation no longer appears to be a concern for the Irons this term.
And surely ending any uncertainty about the manager’s future will boost their chances of building upon their recent progress as well as the tremendous amount of promise they showed last season.
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