Slaven Bilic- West Ham's victim of circumstances

Slaven Bilic - West Ham's victim of circumstances.

Slaven Bilic looked across the vast green acres of the London Stadium and must have wondered why it had to be him rather than somebody else. What on earth had he done to deserve this ghastly fate? Why did he have to be the easy scapegoat for something that was probably wasn't his fault in the first place. And yet it was and life can be grossly unfair when you're a Premier League manager and time is always of the essence.

 Football management is just a hellish imposition. When your team keep winning you're the flavour of the month and more than worth a knighthood. But when it all seems to go down the proverbial plug hole it's time to move on and look for something more emotionally rewarding. For the former manager of the Croatian national side this had to be the worst news any manager of football club can ever receive on a Monday morning.

This morning Slaven Bilic was sacked by West Ham because after a difficult first season at their plush new London Stadium the second is becoming even more chronically indigestible. After their first three away games at the beginning of the season owing to the World Athletics Championship West Ham have stumbled and now tumbled over after a hurtful 4-1 defeat at home to Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool and a series of clod-hopping calamities that has now seen them sink into the Premier League's relegation zone.

Now though West Ham face what seems like a familiar predicament, a side of excellent individuals but a side without a rudder, steering wheel and an over heating engine. During their desperately humiliating defeat to Liverpool Bilic simply looked a doomed and condemned man who could hardly believe what he was seeing. In fact so inept and spineless were West Ham that at times your heart wept profusely for this decent, well intentioned man.

After their unforgettable last season at Upton Park Bilic presided over a team who could do no wrong at any time. West Ham recorded their first win at Anfield since 1963 and in their following Premier League visit to the Etihad Stadium, Manchester City were overwhelmed by West Ham and a brilliant goal by Victor Moses who subsequently went straight back to Chelsea and won the Premier League. On reflection West Ham may have cause to kick themselves but maybe not that hard.

At the end of that season Bilic celebrated wildly with his team after the Hammers finished seventh and qualified for the Europa League qualifying rounds through the back door. He may have been tempted to think back to that incredible night when Croatia reduced Steve McClaren, the former England boss to that famous umbrella as the rain poured from the old Wembley skies.

This season though, his second at the London Stadium, was an almost identical dry run of the last. In mitigation Bilic did have Dimitri Payet in his first team. Payet emerged as one of the most imaginative midfield players the club had been able to boast since perhaps the glory, glory days of Trevor Brooking. It was Payet's free kick prowess that had left the supporters in breathless raptures and his witty improvisations convinced the West Ham faithful that happy days were here again.

Then Payet deserted his post and suddenly discovered that his family hadn't settled in East London and therefore it was time to up sticks heading back to Marseille in no time at all. Now West Ham had been left heartbroken, desolate and bereft and Bilic was now a man under the closest scrutiny. One of their paint brushes had gone missing and while not a blank canvas as such, it did look as if Bilic was just filling in cracks that were becoming much wider than was first thought.

In Manuel Lanzini Bilic may have felt that the creative hiatus was just a temporary setback. Lanzini, a lovely midfield player with a low centre of gravity and the most delicate of touches, decided to inherit the legacy that Payet had left behind. Lanzini is still at the club and continues to enchant with those darting runs and attacking spurts cutting inside opponents and then creating neatly carved spaces for his team mates to run into. Lanzini is no Alan Devonshire but those gallivanting gallops towards his opponents goal have yet to be replicated.

The little Argentinian is still highly regarded at the London Stadium but even Bilic's motivational powers were not enough to inspire both Lanzini and West Ham. When Robert Snodgrass was signed from Hull City last January in the transfer window it seemed as though the Scottish international had adequately filled the play making gap that was left wide open by Payet's departure. But in retrospect there are now West Ham supporters who must be wishing that that window had been slammed shut. Snodgrass is a hard working and progressive midfielder- cum winger but was certainly no Payet and the beard was a transient fashion statement. Snodgrass is currently on loan at Aston Villa and those of a claret and blue disposition will be hoping that the other claret and blues keep him.

So it is then that West Ham face the most gruelling of ordeals. During the summer West Ham bought the former Manchester United favourite Javier Hernandez and Marko Arnautovic from Stoke City for substantial amounts of money. The reaction from the London Stadium Hammers loyalists was so favourable that many of them began to dream about Champions League qualification  and champagne celebrations in the Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford. The opposite though has taken place and now West Ham find themselves in the thick of a relegation battle.

Hernandez, for all his willing heart and hurrying scurrying enthusiasm on and off the ball, is still some way short of the player who won the Premier League for Manchester United. The pace is undoubtedly electrifying and the Mexican trickery is a pleasure to watch but the impact is not the desired one. He may have scored a sprinkling of goals for West Ham but the much more profound influence he had at Manchester United is no more than a shallow pool at West Ham.

Arnautovic, who came on as a sub against Liverpool on Saturday evening, looks, to the untrained eye, the worst piece of business that Bilic had ever conducted at West Ham. So far the Austrian forward looks like the stereotyped square peg in a round hole. Loping down the flanks like a lost stallion in some remote field, Arnautovic is simply rambling and roaming around in ever increasing circles. For a striker who scored goals, seemingly on tap for Mark Hughes Stoke, Arnautovic has quite literally forgotten which way to go.

But then this morning Bilic was summoned to that fateful meeting where football's sack race continued apace. Last week Everton showed Ronald Koeman the door and now Bilic has been given his marching orders. We know how unforgiving football management can be and the days of unwavering loyalty in football seem like ancient history, an anachronism that seems almost as old as two points for a win and the European Cup knock out competition.

Still football does provide one or two minor consolations when managers are driven out by a whole succession of bad results. Slaven Bilic, ladies and gentlemen, is an accomplished rock guitarist and in the next few days he will think about his future and wonder if he could have succeeded in becoming the next Eric Clapton. Bilic will look at his plectrum and those well tuned strings, fondly imagining perhaps a new career in music and looking forward to a more positive future.

In his lowest moments Bilic might be interested to think about the fate that befell some of his managerial predecessors. Brian Clough lasted 44 days at a demanding Leeds United because Cloughie angrily chucked all of the Leeds league championship winners medals into a training ground bin. More recently poor Sam Allardyce accidentally shot himself in the foot when the England FA hierarchy rumbled Allardyce's involvement in some newspaper sting, one that saw him leave the England job in disgrace before he'd even started. But our Sam was not to be deterred and Allardyce remains firmly in the club management shop window.

On Saturday BBC's Football Focus featured a John Motson interview with former Southampton manager Lawrie Mcmenemy. Mcmenemy discussed his beginnings at Grimsby before Southampton came calling. Here was an immensely respected manager who remained with the South Coast club through thick and thin. In 1976 Southampton beat Manchester United in the FA Cup Final and those far off days of wine and song at the Dell, including the likes of Mick Channon, Peter Osgood and Alan Ball, seemed to bring a pronounced lump to Mcmenemy's throat.

For Slaven Bilic the claret and blue memories may be slightly blurred and fractured by those twin evils of defeat and crisis. No chairman or chairmen or women need to be reminded of these harsh truths when they may be quite clearly staring them in the face. Bilic never really looked happy or comfortable with his lot at West Ham and that very noticeable stoop forward in his posture and those anguished glares at his players should have given us a much clearer indication of what was happening at West Ham.

The memory goes back to those two legendary West Ham managers who gave the East London club its most identifiable template. Both Ron Greenwood and then John Lyall were both pioneers and revolutionaries, idealists and dreamers and if there is a silver lining for Bilic then perhaps the eras of Greenwood and Lyall should offer a salutary reminder that things can only get better. Never mind Slaven what the football world has temporarily lost rock music has gained considerably. Now where's that old guitar Slaven. Oh yes it's over there gently weeping with the late and great George Harrison. Oh happy days.