West Ham legend Tony Cottee defends under-fire fans and calls for a change of ownership

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West Ham United legend Tony Cottee has spoken out in defence of the club’s fans and called for change at the top.

West Ham supporters are deeply unhappy with the club’s lack of progress since their much-heralded move from Upton Park to the London Stadium.

A protest march against co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold and their vice-chairman Karren Brady was planned before the home game against Burnley this Saturday.

It came after groups of supporters joined forces over broken promises regarding the stadium move and transfer spending.

That march has since been called off by senior members of the group set up to arrange it but other fans are insisting they will still be protesting before the game.

That has left sections of Hammers fans at eachother’s throats ahead of this weekend’s crucial match against Burnley.

And it comes after co-owner Gold was filmed defending himself to supporters when stuck in traffic on the way home from West Ham’s dreadul 4-1 defeat at Swansea City last time out.

The incident follows similar episodes between fans and the owners in recent years and led to the fanbase facing criticism from pundits and rivals fans.

But now Hammers legend Tony Cottee has spoken out in defence of the club’s supporters on talkSPORT while calling for change at the very top.

“I think you’ve got to understand how the fans feel at the moment,” Cottee told talkSPORT.

“They are very, very frustrated, this has been going on for the last two years really, the last two seasons, lot of it goes back to leaving their beloved Upton Park and the fans are just so frustrated and if you add into that poor performances in the transfer market, poor performances on the pitch and you then go and lose to one of your relegation rivals Swansea 4-1 then you can understand the fans being angry.

“I do think the time is coming for something to happen at West Ham, you know something needs to change, something needs to be done because there is just too much frustration from the fans.

“There was a lot of talk about this march going on and hopefully the board will listen to the fans, the fans are crying out for answers to all the promises that they were given and the board has got to answer these promises.

“The dream that was sold to the West Ham fans was ‘We’re going to move to the new stadium, we’re then going to bring in some world class players and we’re going to try and challenge to get into Europe’ and the reality is the fans are trying to get their heads around the new stadium but they haven’t bought in any world class players and (that’s) the reality at the moment.”