Former West Ham United manager Avram Grant has delivered a scathing verdict on the club, claiming that the reason behind their recent struggles “was never with the coach.”
Former Chelsea boss Grant took over at the club in the summer of 2010 but oversaw a disastrous season which saw them win just seven league games on the way to relegation.
The Israeli was sacked after that campaign but has now questioned the environment that Hammers managers are forced to work within, with Sam Allardyce, Slaven Bilic and David Moyes all leaving the club in the time since his departure.
Speaking to The Sun, he said: “I think that the problem in West Ham was never the coach. It’s impossible that in the last 10 years all the coaches failed, and they sacked every one. David Sullivan is a good owner and an honest guy, but they need to check themselves. How is it possible that all the coaches were wrong, each one of them?
“I think not even one coach finished their contact in West Ham, not one of them in the last 10 years – and the team didn’t do well. When I was in West Ham we started the project that we wanted, and part of it will be based on players there and players that we [would] bring in from outside.
“But the budget was very, very low for some reason. We could only bring in Winston Reid and some other players. I think if West Ham want to succeed, it’s a good sign that they brought in Pellegrini, but I don’t think the problem over the last 10 years was the coach, no.”
OPINION
It is hardly rocket science to work out that the problems at West Ham are not managerial, but at board level. David Gold and David Sullivan took over at the club around the time of Grant’s appointment, and the club have been a shambles behind the scenes ever since. It all came to a head this season with the crowd unrest during the Hammers’ defeat to Burnley, but that has been coming for a long while. There needs to be some changes made in the way that club bosses both run the operation and deal with their managers. Hopefully the appointment of Pellegrini, who is a different calibre of coach for the club, will help to steer the hierarchy in the right direction. They will surely want to keep the Chilean happy at all costs, with the thought of him walking away surely a nightmare. There have been suggestions that the chairmen will take a step back under the 64-year-old, but only time will tell if that actually happens.
