Our series of 2015-16 Premier League mid-season reviews continues with a look at Slaven Bilic’s surprise package Hammers.
The Story So Far
It’s a little difficult now, like remembering a dream after waking. As the details fall away as dry sand does from a clenched fist, we try to recall the sentiment that surrounded West Ham after they had parted ways with previous manager Sam Allardyce. “Be careful what you wish for” echoed hollowly around, as mundane a warning as the football had become under Big Sam in his final dog days. Yes, security from relegation was near-certain with Sam – although his powers in this regard will be tested by Sunderland this season – but at what cost? The news of his departure was met with good will by most of the supportership, and when Slaven Bilic was brought on board, the 2015/16 season seemed stuffed with exciting potential. Halfway through now and already it has, somehow, exceeded even the most optimistic of supporters’ hopes.
A top six position to christen the new year with, and a smorgasbord of mouth-watering talent to call our own. The transfer business conducted by Bilic and the club in the off-season was superb, a sumptuous first course, where the substantial, rugged umami notes of Gabriel Ogbonna and Pedro Obiang were garnished with the sublime palette-cleansing piquancy of Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini. This entree was followed by a lavish dinner; victories over Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool (twice) have caused many a satisfied belch around East London. Injuries have hit this season, all at once, which caused the stomach to turn and gurgle more than a little, but clean sheets and hard-earned draws settled the belly nicely. Heck, even last season’s lumpen chef d’oevre, Andy Carroll, whose presence at the table had been gristly and tasteless at times, appears robust and juicy this season under Bilic. It has been truly refreshing, a meal very much fit for a fan-base who, justified or not, has felt starved and hopeless for a while. As the injuries subside, and the appetite grows again, the Hammers’ fans are looking forward to an equally delicious third course and dessert, as they entertain after-dinner thoughts of the Olympic Stadium next season.
The Manager
Simply put, Bilic has been brilliant. The ideal tonic after the sneeringly dismissive attitude of his predecessor, Bilic immediately struck a favourable tone with the supporters, appearing instantly in tune with their hopes and expectations. Even a rough start, as jarring losses to near-unknown opposition in the Europa League qualifying stages made a bad first impression, didn’t temper his enthusiasm. With a calm financial wind at his back, provided by the club owners and vice-chairwoman, Bilic diligently forayed into the market and emerged having arguably conducted the best overall business in the league. Two losses in his first ten matches as manager, with those aforementioned historic upsets at Arsenal and Liverpool punctuating this period, sent the fans into raptures.
And then, as if timed to test him, key injuries hit, as Payet was struck down against Everton, and Lanzini against Stoke. A winless run of eight matches began, but only two of these matches were losses. Stolid draws, with hatches firmly battened down, stoked a pile of embers in the gut, nurturing a flame that refused to die. Lanzini returned against Southampton, a match that ended in victory, and Payet was brought on last weekend against Liverpool, in another win. Bilic’s ability to tighten the defence after the hapless 4-1 loss to Spurs was encouraging in the extreme; a team that had been plagued by mistakes at the back has, since that 4-1 defeat, conceded only three goals in seven games. Bilic came into the job as a man that hadn’t really been tested as a club manager in an elite league; he has certainly proven, with gusto, that he can indeed thrive in the Premier League, just in this first half of the season alone.
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Standout Player
Dimitri Payet is the best player to pull on the claret and blue and take the field since Carlos Tevez, and before Tevez, Paolo Di Canio. The Frenchman acclimatised with consummate ease to English football and, even having missed seven games with an ankle injury, still ranks fourth in the league for key passes. He tore Arsenal apart in his first start for the club, and has since established himself as a true diamond in West Ham’s midfield, capable of creating space and splitting a defence in the blink of an eye. Slaven Bilic recently compared him, and with good reason, to Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil, the player currently making a mockery of the Premier League assists race. Ozil cost the Gunners over £40 million. Payet cost West Ham less than £15 million.
There are few players for whom the ostentatious comes so easily, and ends up so effectively making mugs of his opponents. On his return to action against Liverpool, he did this. And it’s no fluke: earlier this season, in training, the Frenchman scorched his own teammates mercilessly. He then repeated the trick, and then some, against Crystal Palace. His poise on the ball, in the midst of a hectic Premier League midfield, is otherworldly. He is, as a mixture of value and talent, surely the signing of the season.
Second-Half Prediction
It feels as though those eight weeks in the desert were meant to test West Ham. Wins abandoned them, but they found, in their despair, a steely resolve, an iron fortitude. The wounds inflicted during that meagre spell weren’t mortal, and with the injuries easing, the next run of fixtures look very promising indeed. Bournemouth, Newcastle and Aston Villa make up three of West Ham’s next four opponents, and Norwich and Sunderland follow not long after. It wouldn’t surprise many people if the Hammers took maximum points from all of these matches, especially with Payet eager to make up for lost time.
This Premier League season has been consistent only in its inconsistency, and so a top six place is certainly attainable for West Ham. They are still in the FA Cup, playing Wolves in the third round on January 10th. If injuries don’t ruin the party, this season might end up being the best send-off for the Boleyn Ground anyone could have hoped for. There is also a good omen in the air; the last time West Ham completed a league double over Liverpool, it was 52 years ago, in the 1963/64 season. That season the Hammers also won their first ever FA Cup. Could history repeat itself, and could this fine team Bilic has crafted bring European football to the Olympic Stadium next season? Anything’s possible. The Hammers are, just as they sing, forever blowing bubbles, but in 2016 theirs hasn’t burst yet.
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