Chinks are beginning to show in Slaven Bilic’s armour after West Ham United’s terrible start to the new season.
Match stewards attempt to make West Ham United fans sit down
Infighting amongst fans, resentment towards owners and concerns over safety have soured West Ham United‘s season so far.
Bilic‘s side have lost four of their opening five Premier League matches and scraped past Bournemouth in their solitary victory.
The Hammers were also embarrassingly dumped out of the Europa League by Romanian minnows Astra Giurgiu for the second season running.
Fans are at each other’s throats over standing at their new 60,000 seater Olympic Stadium home while Karren Brady – who spearheaded the club’s move to Stratford – was allegedly spat at by her own supporters as things turned sour in a recent 4-2 home defeat to Watford.
Slaven Bilic watches on as his team are thrashed by West Brom
Tensions won’t be helped by a repeat score when they faced West Bromwich Albion last time out.
But what the poor start to the season has done is expose just how neglectful the former Croatia boss was in the summer window.
All the talk in the close season was about the Hammers signing marquee attacking players to push on and challenge for the Champions League places they missed out on by just four points last season.
But anyone who watched the East Londoners in the second half of last season will know Bilic’s side have been struggling defensively a lot longer than the first few games of 2016/17.
Bilic made a mistake letting James Tomkins leave for London rivals Palace
In the summer West Ham were in need of new blood in defence as much as new attackers.
The Hammers were one of the most potent attacking and counter attacking threats last season so not a lot was wrong in that department.
Why then did Bilic focus most of his efforts on signing a host of players which has only served to unsettle the best area of the team.
To add insult to injury, the Hammers not only failed to recruit a new centre half, but also let their versatile homegrown star James Tomkins go to London rivals Crystal Palace for £10 million.
His panic replacement on deadline day? Former Real Madrid and Liverpool right back Alvaro Arbeloa.
Meanwhile Tomkins is playing and scoring in a Palace side who look to have done infinitely better business than West Ham.
The sale of Tomkins was meant to give the likes of Reece Burke and Reece Oxford a path to the first team.
But neither is coming remotely close to being used in the Premier League by Bilic.
Headache for Bilic
West Ham fans want attacking football but they equally enjoy seeing their players fighting tooth and nail for the cause and getting stuck in.
Bilic has earned the right to turn things around and injuries haven’t helped him but for the first time in his Hammers career he is under real pressure from the fans.
Failure to solve the problems and Bilic’s transfer window neglect will come back to haunt him by costing him his job.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
