West Ham’s decision to sack Slaven Bilic was Karren Brady and board’s hardest decision in 25 years
West Ham parted ways with fan favourite last month and appointed David Moyes as his replacement
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WHEN we told Slaven Bilic we didn’t want him to stay as manager of West Ham, it was clear he was not going to argue with the decision.
No one likes to sack anyone. It’s not easy, especially when you genuinely like them, and I take no pleasure from it — but sometimes there is just no alternative.
Everyone on the board enjoyed a good relationship with Slaven and supported him at every opportunity.
We spent £100million on players since he joined — and no club outside the top six has spent more.
Every pre-season requirement, every winter training break, every backroom member of staff, the complete refit of the training ground… whatever he wanted, we tried to deliver.
He, in turn, was an honest man with integrity and intelligence and was furiously loyal to West Ham.
So sacking this thoroughly decent man was one of the hardest things our board felt it had to do in 25 years in football.
I think a huge majority of our supporters agreed with our decision. They, like us, remain as respectful of the 47-year-old Croatian as it is possible to be of a manager whose diminishing success in leading a good squad of players has placed the club in the relegation zone with the season almost a third through.
Expectations at the London Stadium are far higher than that. We spent £45m in the summer buying experience in defence and goal threat in attack. Neither manifested itself.
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Rather, goals have poured into our own net to the extent that we have the worst record in the league — and we haven’t scored many, either.
It is pure excuse-making for anyone to blame the move to the London Stadium for our failings. The Hammers roar is as alive as ever and the fervour with which our fans blew bubbles after we scored against Liverpool on Sunday was heart-warming.
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On the touchline, Bilic was dancing, shrugging off his melancholy air as, like many of us, he imagined a comeback as exhilarating as that which saw off Spurs in the League Cup a fortnight or so before. This time, though, the 0-2 was to become 1-4 rather than 3-2.
With the Liverpool goals, Bilic recognised that his 28-month term had ended and it was typical of him that he was prepared to say so.
He was never afraid of the truth or of speaking it. We liked him for that, David Sullivan, David Gold and I. There was always an air of sadness about him, even in the good times.
In his first six months, when Dimitri Payet was inspiring the team with his Gallic brilliance, Bilic sometimes looked pensive, as though he thought this was a lucky break and might not go on. He never quite recovered after the player staged a strike and went back to Marseille.
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He began to run out of ideas as the team’s initial defiance to Payet’s behaviour faded and less than a year later the manager had also departed.
As a board, we have sacked only five managers (including Slaven) of the nine we have worked with in that quarter of a century.
And as soon as the job became available, some of our past managers were straight on the phone asking for another chance to work with us.
This sacking was in some ways the easiest and in others, the hardest. We would liked to have kept Slaven but we couldn’t. He understood.
So the two of us, who have a good working relationship based on mutual respect, said sad goodbyes.
A few months ago I highlighted that the then-Sunderland manager David Moyes gave an unworthy reaction to a question from a woman reporter. He apologised to her and I welcome his move to us and know he won’t make such a remark again.
The pundits point to the ex-Everton and Manchester United manager as the man who failed to keep Sunderland up last season. That is too simplistic.
Sunderland were on a lengthy slide towards relegation — and are now at the foot of the Championship table lacking high-quality players to bolster them.
We do not believe this to be true of our squad and it will be a test of Moyes’ organisational skill to drill them into the powerful unit we think they should be. His is a very different temperament to that of his predecessor.
I don’t know whether or not he is the dour Scot he is sometimes reputed to be but we know he has many of the characteristics of Sir Alex Ferguson, who mentored his accession at Old Trafford. And I know Slaven Bilic will wish him the best of luck.