West Ham lost its identity?

Have the departures of Alan Curbishley and Kevin Keegan from Uniteds West Ham and Newcastle respectively signalled the end for the old school manager?

Last updated: 7th September 2008

West Ham lost its identity?

Dillon: no going back to the old school

"What right have West Ham got to be talking about playing in the Champions League? They've never even won the championship, which I would've thought is some sort of starting point!

John Dillon
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The game is changing, according to John Dillon of the Daily Express. And as more and more foreign investors take over at English clubs, the traditional kudos bestowed upon the club manager is fast losing its status...

Both Curbishley and Keegan resigned from their posts believing themselves to be undermined by a director of football when it comes to the buying and selling of players.

And in the case of the East Londoners, the influx of cash from abroad has seen the club gradually lose its identity.

Dillon told Sunday Supplement: "Apparently Kia Joorabchian, the man with the South American contacts, is still a transfer consultant for West Ham. And at the moment, while they don't have a manager, they've signed a Uruguayan left-back who was a free agent.

"That's a symbol of how the game is changing.

Earthquake

"Alan Curbishley is very friendly with Sir Alex Ferguson and is out of an older school of management. Undoubtedly at both West Ham and Newcastle you've seen the shift into what's coming - and that's because businessmen from a broader background are now involved at those clubs.

"West Ham was once run by a local family, it then passed into the hands of Terrance Brown, who'd been a lifelong supporter. And now you have people from Iceland, it's a completely different scenario.

"And what we saw there was an earthquake caused by this ground shift."

He added: "West Ham have lost two managers now: Alan Pardew who finished ninth and got to the FA Cup final and Alan Curbishley who kept them up and in doing so staved off many millions of pounds worth of debt, having finished 10th the previous season.

"One of the problems there is the previous chairman Eggert Magnusson, who used to be leaping around in the directors' box, fuelled fatefully unrealistic ambitions for the place.

"He was talking about West Ham building a new stadium and qualifying for the Champions League. If you think about it, what right have West Ham got to be talking about playing in the Champions League? They've never even won the championship, which I would've thought is some sort of starting point!

Precious

"West Ham was a club that represented some sort of regional custom and identity - and a club that has value in the game without wining the European cup and the league championship, but is more precious in its way because it's organically created.

"It's gone now, though, it's vanished."

Even though they're still signing players without a manager in charge, West Ham are looking to replace Curbishley and Italians Gianfranco Zola and Roberto Donadoni have emerged as potential candidates to work alongside technical director Gianluca Nani, also Italian.

However, former Hammer Slaven Bilic, who's played down his chances of a move back, remains the frontrunner according to Dillon.

"I fancy that Bilic is still the number-one choice," he said. "I think what he's been saying publicly in Croatia is what he has to say because they're playing England next week."

Glamour

Whoever the next man is to take up the Upton Park hotseat, the fact remains that he'll have to answer to Nani.

Said Dillon: "The football director role seems to have involved into this transfer job, but originally the idea was about much more than that.

"It was about giving vision to the club from the youth level upwards, so that there's a policy throughout the club and when managers come and go, as they tend to do, there's still someone there who brings continuity.

"But I guess transfers are the glamour end of the business so they've all gradually gravitated towards that."

He concluded: "Whatever we may think of it, it's coming, it's the future. More and more international businessmen are going to buy English football clubs and they're going to want to run things this way."

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