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Sam Allardyce granted stay of execution as West Ham manager | Sam Allardyce granted stay of execution as West Ham manager |
(about 1 hour later) | |
Sam Allardyce will have to wait to discover if he is to be retained by West Ham United following talks with the club's hierarchy. A decision on the manager's future at Upton Park will be made before the end of the month. | |
West Ham's manager of three years, who steered the team to a 13th-place finish this season after flirting with relegation for long periods, held talks with the co-chairman David Sullivan on Tuesday amid grumbling supporters' discontent at the style of football the side have played. Allardyce pointed to the team's survival, after a difficult campaign blighted by injuries to key players over the winter months, as reason enough to be retained but there remain serious doubts among some members of the board. | |
Sullivan and his fellow co-chairman, David Gold, are sympathetic to the fans' complaints and will spend the next 10 days considering their options, including exploring replacements for the man who steered the club back to the Premier League in 2012, before meeting Allardyce again. It is understood there are differences of opinion on the board at present as to how best to proceed, with all parties therefore to take stock of the situation ahead of reaching a final decision. | |
Allardyce took West Ham to the semi-finals of the Capital One Cup, where they were humiliated by Manchester City, and oversaw four successive wins in February to allay concerns over relegation. Yet even during that sequence there were calls for him to be sacked by some of the club's supporters – the manager has been insistent that they are a vocal minority – with the scrappy manner of a home win against Hull City at Upton Park in late March actually prompting boos from the home support at the final whistle. A run of five defeats in six games at the end of the season once the team were effectively safe has not strengthened his position. | |
Yet West Ham remain a top-flight club with their spending effectively restricted by a debt of around £75m and the priority to remain in the Premier League before the move to the Olympic stadium in two years' time. Allardyce has a season to run on a £3m-a-year deal, an agreement which includes a bonus for avoiding relegation, and would still appear the best option in ensuring they prolong their stay in the division. The 59-year-old remains bullish and is pushing for reinforcements to be made this summer, particularly up front, having attended a strategic planning meeting last Thursday where the summer's transfer policy was addressed. |
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