Last week, I took a look at West Ham's fixture list and saw two of the most winnable games of the season; West Brom and Blackpool at home. I assessed that four points from these games would be enough to steer us away from the bottom three in the league, and assure me that our manager Avram Grant was capable of saving us. We ended up with two, and my patience has now run out.
Pundits over the years have praised Avram Grant for the spirit his teams play with, even in defeat. Well yes, they do, and he seems like a lovely bloke. But this ignores the fact that all he ever ends up with is a defeat.
In recent years he has been in charge of a Chelsea team that was on auto-pilot after losing Jose Mourinho, and a Portsmouth side that was resigned to relegation before they had even begun their season. Needless to say, nothing positive was achieved at either club. At West Ham, all he is expected to do is create a committed team that wins when it is supposed to, and he has failed to match even those meagre expectations.
Yes, we have had a run of 4 unbeaten in the league, and are currently on a string of three without defeat. But all but one of those games has been a draw, and we are talking about opponents like Stoke, Blackpool, West Brom, Birmingham and Fulham here. Grant keeps praising our 'great performance' but this is, unquestionably, relegation form.
The blame for this lies with the man in the dugout, regardless of how invasive the chairmen may be. Luis Boa Morte and Kieron Dyer continue to be paid vast sums of money and played ahead of more willing and capable wingers like Pablo Barrera and Junior Stanislas. Matthew Upson is out of shape and off the pace in defence, yet plays every game while Winston Reid, despite strong performances in the World Cup, kicks his heels. Radoslav Kovac is often preferred to Valon Behrami, and we rely on Frederic Puiqionne and Victor Obinna, two average strikers at best, to supply the goals.
Selling has not been a strong point, either. Letting a genuine creator and dead-ball specialist like Alessandro Diamanti go is ridiculously naive. Watching his recent goal for Brescia against Juventus is all the more depressing when you compare it to Carlton Cole hitting the post from a yard yesterday.
Yet despite all this, Grant keeps citing the positives and blaming the referee for not awarding us penalties. All the hallmarks of a loser. He must see that this is our worse ever start to a Premier League season, and that he has created a team that, bereft of the underrated Gianfranco Zola, no longer believes it can win football matches.
If Grant stays, I will wager the following: We will beat Man Utd in the Carling Cup and probably reach the final, but we will go down with about 25 points, most of them from draws. If you can be happy with that, you're not a football fan.
A new boss has to be brought in before the Christmas run and transfer window to give us any chance. Relegation, considering the amount of debt the club has, would take years to recover from, or annihilate us altogether. Please Avram, that will do now. That will do.
