By Grant James

It’s simply remarkable what Slaven Bilic achieved at West Ham United last season. He breathed new life into an ageing team, as well as instilled a fluid, attacking playing style which saw the Hammers beat the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham and Everton – a stunning achievement. In previous seasons, these are the type of games fans wrote off, but Slaven completely changed the mentality of the players and supporters. He has built a team capable of competing with these tough teams and picking up points; I can’t remember in my life time ever having a team or manager able of achieving this feat.

However, this season, the fairytale has failed to blossom. With the club leaving behind their home of 112 years and moving into the sparkling spaceship that is the London Stadium, results have been inconsistent for Bilic’s men. West Ham lost eight games throughout the entire 2015/16 season; they now have that number of defeats in December.

Worryingly, goals have been hard to come by at the new stadium too, with the team scoring more than one goal only once in eight matches. This is not what the fans had come to expect from a Slaven Bilic team which scored the joint fourth highest amount of goals last season (65).

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Nearly all of West Ham’s summer signings have flopped. Now, this isn’t all Bilic’s fault. It’s no secret that owners David Gold and David Sullivan like to penny pinch and this lack of competitive investment in the transfer window has halted the teams progress on the pinch. Loan deals and freebies are all well and good if the gamble pays off, but more often than not it doesn’t and this has been the case this season.

Loan signings Simeone Zaza and Jonathan Calleri have been arguably two of the worst players to don the claret and blue colours, with no goals or assists in 20 games combined. Freebies Gokhan Tore, Sofiane Feghouli and Havard Nordtviet have all failed to make an impact with just one assist between them from 23 games combined. Club record signing Andre Ayew has looked out of place since his £20.5million move from Swansea. He was

signed as the clubs “marquee striker” David Sullivan promised the fans, but has spent most of his minutes on the wing.

With West Ham sitting one point above the relegation zone and bookmakers fluctuating between Bilic being the favourite manager to lose his job, I think the worse thing the club could do is panic and sack him. The Croatian is the best manager the club have employed in decades and he delivered the best season of football I’ve witnessed in my 20 years.

I believe he deserves time to replicate the mistakes made this season and turn the London Stadium into a fortress. It was always going to take time to settle into the new 57,000 capacity arena, like it does when anybody moves house. Two recent spirited draws at Old Trafford and Anfield prove he has not “lost the dressing room” and that he still can get the best out of this West Ham team.

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