LONDON // West Ham United manager Sam Allardyce shifts uneasily, watching from the bench as his team loses its grip on the last home match of the season. After Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Everton a “Big Sam Out” banner is unravelled in the stands, and a fate is potentially sealed.
West Ham were on the crest of a wave mid-season, sitting fourth in the Premier League table at Christmas and anticipating European football during their final year at Upton Park before a move to the 54,000-seat Olympic Stadium.
But a dismal second half of the campaign, with just three wins in the past 20 matches, has seen the team drop to 11th. The fans are well-versed in disappointments. The club's anthem, I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles, has the refrain "just like my dreams they fade and die".
The target of fans’ anger is Allardyce, who, at the helm for four seasons, is about to see his contract expire.
Owners David Gold and David Sullivan face a tough choice: Stick, and renew the contract of a manager who has never been relegated and will virtually guarantee Premier League football for the inaugural season at the Olympic Stadium in 2016, or twist.
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Early in the season, fans witnessed the most scintillating football West Ham have played in recent years, totting up wins against Manchester City, Liverpool, Swansea City, Crystal Palace, Queens Park Rangers, Burnley, Newcastle United, West Bromwich Albion and Leicester City.
Signing Alex Song from Barcelona was a huge coup for the club, as the player dominated the midfield game after game. Senegal’s Diafra Sakho burst onto the scene after arriving from French side Metz in the summer, becoming the first West Ham striker to score six goals in six consecutive Premier League matches.
A tactical switch from the previous year saw midfielder Stuart Downing regain his England form and place as he split defences with pinpoint passes from the tip of a midfield diamond. Pacey Ecuadorean forward Enner Valencia arrived after a successful World Cup, and striker Andy Carroll regained fitness after an early-season setback to bludgeon his way past central defenders.
Young English full-backs Aaron Cresswell and the on-loan Carl Jenkinson were excelling in attack and defence. With a solid partnership of Winston Reid and James Tomkins in the centre of defence blossoming, West Ham looked on course for a record haul of points in the Premier League.
But the bubble burst. Injuries to Sakho, Carroll, Reid and Tomkins played their part, as did the loss of form of Song and Downing. In the eyes of the fans and owners, one man was to blame: Allardyce. He oversaw a shift in tactics that robbed the fans of a swashbuckling style that had served the team so well early in the season.
Out went the fast, incisive football and, not for the first time under Allardyce, in came a dreary, long-ball style focused on percentages and defensive discipline.
Allardyce has long had a fractious relationship with West Ham fans. This is a club with an illustrious past. Team captain Bobby Moore, striker Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst, who scored the World Cup’s only hat-trick in a final, are all England greats for their part in the 4-2 victory over West Germany in the 1966 final.
“We’re West Ham United, we play on the floor,” fans chanted during Allardyce’s tough first season, when players were trying to battle it out of the competitive Championship, England’s second tier.
“West Ham way? Sounds like not winning,” was the manager’s retort at the time. After yo-yoing between the Premier League and the Championship for several years, the no-nonsense, belligerent, 60-year-old north-Englander had a point.
Allardyce, who took West Ham back into the Premier League at the first time of asking, has finished every season since between 10th and 12th. The worst they will finish this season is 11th.
To fill the Olympic Stadium to capacity, West Ham’s owners need to find an extra 16,000 fans per match.
But as even diehard fans struggle to get excited about West Ham’s style as directed by Allardyce, his days may be numbered.
“There’s no one point where he lost the fans, it’s been a cumulative process,” said radio broadcaster and West Ham blogger Iain Dale of the West Ham Till I die website. “On balance, he will have to go.”
Former Manchester United manager David Moyes, now at Real Sociedad, Napoli’s former Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez and former West Ham defender Slavan Bilic, who coaches Beskitas in Turkey, are among those rumoured to take over.
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