Dreaded vote of confidence for Avram Grant

Bottom of the table with just nine points from thirteen games. Only one win all season and the team have managed to find the net just eleven times. There are two things in these circumstances that the manager doesn’t want to hear. Firstly, he doesn’t want to be given the sack. Secondly, and only marginally less upsetting, is to be given the dreaded vote of confidence from the club board.

Safe

Unfortunately for West Ham’s Avram Grant, the second of those things happened to him yesterday when vice-chairperson Karen Brady said that his job is safe.

Asked by the BBC if Grant would still be the club’s manager at the end of this season she replied,

“Almost definitely, yes.”

Troubling

With the Hammers already five points adrift of the safety zone in the Premier League, these are troubling times for the East End of London club. Brady went on to say that the board must shoulder their responsibility for the current predicament.

“January gives us the ideal opportunity to do things help our football team. Not only is Avram Grant going to keep his job, but we also accept that we have responsibility. We are the board, we put our hands in our pockets.”

Brady went further and recognised that the whole club needs lifting.

Spiit

“There are other things that can happen in terms of lifting the spirit, and bringing a sense of calm. That very much comes from the top.”

Grant took the role at West Ham after Gianfranco Zola was sacked after leading the team to a seventeenth placed finish last season. His record in England is pretty good as he led Chelsea to the 2008 Champions League final and Portsmouth to last season’s FA Cup final. He signed a four-year contract with West Ham in June.

Brady sent a slightly mixed message by saying that people should give it time, but also pointing out that there were a few players bought in the Summer and that West Ham were looking to do more than just survive this season.

Business

“We feel that it takes time. We’re trying to encourage everybody that the season is not over yet. We did quite a bit of transfer business in the summer, but obviously not enough. We haven’t even had the discussion about whether Avram is going to be here or not. Weak-minded people press the panic button, but at the same time we didn’t want to just survive this season.”

That doesn’t sound like a whole-hearted endorsement of the manager to me and I think it definitely comes under the heading of the ‘dreaded vote of confidence’.

Easier

It seems clear that Grant only has a short time to turn things around and with games against Liverpool at Anfield and Manchester United in the Carling Cup, things are not going to get much easier for the Israeli manager. In fact, a home game against Wigan on 27th November looks to be the only game this side of the New Year that West Ham may just be favourites to win.

If that turns out to be the case then I suspect it will be a different manager that will be spending whatever transfer funds are available in January.