Wigan 3 West Ham 2:AVRAM GRANT was sacked as manager of West Ham last night within an hour of overseeing his side's relegation from the Premier League.
This was a damning final match for a West Ham manager outmanoeuvred by his opposite number, Roberto Martinez, who salvaged this match with a double half-time substitution. When Rob Green allowed the last meaningful kick of the game to slither under his body, the 4,500 who had journeyed from London began a chant of “Avram on the dole”. Their wish was granted in less than an hour.
The club confirmed his dismissal in a two-paragraph statement and said that first-team coach Kevin Keen would oversee West Ham’s final match of the season at home to Sunderland.
Martin O’Neill, the man the club’s owners, David Gold and David Sullivan, targeted in January, is unlikely to want the task of reviving a club that is already €92m in debt and which Sullivan said would require a €46m injection of cash from the owners to endure relegation. The stadium, Upton Park, and the training ground at Chadwell Heath has already been put up as security to the banks and Sullivan confirmed before West Ham’s fate was sealed that they were “in a worse financial position than any other club in the country”. He has already ruled out the possibility of the club going into administration.
It was Thomas Hitzlsperger who created both goals for Demba Ba, that for any other side would have been enough especially if Ba had run through to seal his hat-trick when the score was 2-1.
Four minutes beforehand Wigan had pulled a goal back when Charles N’Zogbia drove the free-kick he had won spectacularly into Green’s net. Then Wigan were level, as Connor Sammon slid between two West Ham defenders to turn home his shot, and all the desire and inspiration drained from Grant’s side. Ben Watson struck the post in the final minute and it seemed they would escape with a draw. But even that fig-leaf was denied them.
After overseeing his second successive relegation which, unlike last year’s experience with Portsmouth, did not have the consolation of an FA Cup final appearance, Grant said: “It is a very sad day, the saddest since I started football almost 40 years ago. I cannot put it into words. I am very sad, especially for the supporters and the people at the club.”
Grant came to Upton Park to succeed Gianfranco Zola, who was far more popular with supporters, although he avoided relegation last season with only 35 points.
“Yes, I take responsibility,” he said. “I am not a guy who gives responsibility to other people. It is my responsibility to pick the team and choose the tactics. The results were my responsibility. My job was to keep this team in the league and I failed. I think I did well with the players.”
It is the quality of his players that is the most damning evidence against Grant and Scott Parker, who has become the first footballer of the year ever to endure relegation, will be sold. The spectre of West Ham inheriting the Olympic Stadium while in the Championship is now a possibility.
