The Israeli has paid the price for relegation with his job but the reality is that there is plenty of blame to go round
West Ham have done the right thing four months too late. Avram Grant had been a dead man walking ever since his bosses tried to replace him with Martin O'Neill in January. Whatever the reasons for Grant staying then ? some felt O'Neill was never going to come, others put it down to the shenanigans of David Gold, David Sullivan and Karren Brady in the media ? it was a disastrous move.
Now the trio are just saving face. West Ham have been relegated but it did not have to be this way. Liverpool and West Bromwich Albion have both demonstrated the value of changing managers during the season. How different it all could have been if Grant had gone earlier.
Then again, how different things could have been if he had never been appointed in the first place. Only West Ham could look at a manager who finished bottom of the league with Portsmouth and decide that he is the man for the job. After all, this is the same club that beat Bury 10-0 in 1983 and promptly signed one of their centre-backs, Paul Hilton.
Grant has plenty of apologists, people often pointing to the Israeli taking Chelsea to the Champions League final in 2008 and losing to Manchester United only on penalties, but the fact remains that his side lost. As they did in the Carling Cup final to Tottenham Hotspur and in the quarter-final of the FA Cup to Barnsley.
Grant also took West Ham to the last four of the Carling Cup, where naturally enough they lost to Birmingham City. In that game West Ham were 3-1 up on aggregate at half-time of the second leg, only to collapse and lose in extra time. Afterwards supporters were bewildered to hear Grant reveal that he did not know what to say to his players at half-time, neatly exemplifying why West Ham were on their way down.
That admission immediately springs to mind now. Leading 2-0 against Wigan Athletic at half-time in a game they had to win to stay up, it was all too predictable that they would be incapable of hanging on. And so it proved, Charles N'Zogbia's goal confirming what many had suspected for a long time.
Once again Grant failed to respond to changes by the opposition's manager, Roberto Mart�nez's decision to throw on Victor Moses and Conor Sammon at the interval giving Wigan a greater menace in attack. In total West Ham have thrown away 22 points from winning positions, a damning indictment of their manager. Leads have been frittered away more clumsily than a hapless detective blundering his way through a case.
Last season West Ham also struggled and essentially they stayed up only because the three sides that went down, Burnley, Hull City and Portsmouth, were so wretched. Remarkably 35 points was enough to secure safety but it was clear that major rebuilding was required in the summer. It never happened. Even though Sullivan and Gold said that every player bar Parker was for sale, hardly the most inspirational of messages, the squad largely remained the same.
Going into the season without suitable full-backs was asking for trouble ? five players have been used at left-back ? while �8m was wasted on Pablo Barrera and Winston Reid, unforgivable errors of judgment when funds were so limited.
A 3-0 defeat by Aston Villa on the first day highlighted the problems and West Ham did not win until they beat Tottenham on 25 September, a game that ultimately provided nothing more than another false dawn. What is more, they have managed to win only two home games against sides in the bottom half of the table, picking up just two points against the three promoted sides at Upton Park. Too often Grant has changed his side from game to game, robbing it of consistency and continuity, while he is tactically incoherent, often asking strikers to play on the wing due to a misguided desire to use a 4-3-3 formation.
The blame cannot entirely be pinned on Grant, however, which is fortunate seeing that there is plenty to throw around. Robert Green has been shaky, still unnerved by his error against the USA in the World Cup. Matthew Upson has been so inspirational as captain that most onlookers assume Parker has the armband. Freddie Piquionne, though willing, is wayward in front of goal. Robbie Keane's loan deal stipulated that West Ham would have to pay �6m to Tottenham if he kept them up. His misses in recent games were so pathetic that conspiracy theorists might have wondered if he was doing it on purpose, simply so he would not have to spend another season at Upton Park. And then there is Carlton Cole, who failed to take a gilt-edged chance to win the game against Wigan in stoppage time. Little wonder supporters have taken to calling him 'Can't Control'.
Doubts must be raised about Sullivan and Gold, too. In their defence they rescued the club from going into administration when they took over in January 2010 and inherited a mess from the dreadful Icelandic owners, whose part in all this must not be under-estimated. The new owners have also secured the Olympic Stadium but, other than that, positives are thin on the ground. Successive managers, Gianfranco Zola and Grant, have been critically undermined while Gold's and Sullivan's comments in the media have been ill-advised.
When West Ham were preposterously relegated in 2003 with a squad containing David James, Glen Johnson, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick, Jermain Defoe, Trevor Sinclair, Freddie Kanout� and Paolo Di Canio, their former chairman, Terry Brown, mused that perhaps it was just their turn. While that aside was met with scorn by supporters, few would dispute that this is a deserved relegation.
It is now five years since West Ham, who had finished ninth, contributed to the greatest FA Cup final in recent years, losing to Liverpool only on penalties. They had a bright young manager, Alan Pardew, and a team packed with exciting players such as Matthew Etherington, Yossi Benayoun and Dean Ashton. It has all gone wrong since then. A broken ankle suffered in training for England in 2006 eventually forced Ashton to retire, Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano came, went and cost millions, Eggert Magnusson's spending spree in the summer of 2007 crippled the club's finances, players like Craig Bellamy, James Collins and Lucas Neill have been replaced with inferior versions or simply not at all, and there have been three relegation battles in five seasons. If anything, they have done well to last this long.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/may/15/west-ham-avram-grant-relegation
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