Is Gianfranco Zola losing his spark at Upton Park?

Ken Dyer
06.10.09

West Ham were booed off the pitch on Saturday as their struggling players snatched an injury-time equaliser against 10-man Fulham at Upton Park.

The Hammers have made a terrible start to the season having won just one Premier League match and having shipped eight goals in their last three games.

It is a complete contrast to last season when the management WEST HAM were booed off the pitch on Saturday as their struggling players snatched an injury-time equaliser against 10-man Fulham at Upton Park.

The Hammers have made a terrible start to the season having won just one Premier League match and having shipped eight goals in their last three games.

It is a complete contrast to last season when the management duo of Gianfranco Zola and Steve Clarke led the team to a ninth place finish in the top flight. With doubts persisting about the future ownership of the club and players having to be sold before Zola can make any signings the outlook, with West Ham second-bottom of the League, does not look too bright.

Here Ken Dyer, who has been covering the Hammers for 30 years, assesses what has gone wrong down at the Boleyn.

Why are Gianfranco Zola and Steve Clarke not able to achieve the same results they did last season?

Zola has an expressive face. He lights up a room when he smiles but, by the same token, finds it difficult to hide his emotions when he is unhappy.

On Sunday, at the end of the match against Fulham, his expression spoke volumes.

More than anything else he looked uncertain at what he had just witnessed, a little confused. He was struggling to find a solution to the way his side caved in when the going got tough.

Zola is still learning the management game. He and his trusted assistant Steve Clarke went through a similar spell last season and came through. They remain confident they can do the same again although they discovered new frailties in their team in the 2-2 draw with Fulham.

The one thing Zola won't do is compromise his ideals. He has firm ideas of how his team should play and that won't change.

There is no doubt his players still believe in the little maestro but he must quickly find answers to his current problems.

After last season, when his team finished a creditable ninth, he wanted to add offensive potential to his playing squad. He has done that but perhaps at the expense of defensive solidarity.

Is the club's uncertain future ownership affecting team performances?

Players traditionally have little interest in boardroom activity, as long as their bank accounts continue to be credited at the same time every month. West Ham's England defender Matthew Upson made a perceptive comment early in the season though when he said that the club's financial position could mean a "tough season" ahead.

The club's uncertain future ownership certainly doesn't help Zola in the least as he attempts to improve on his team's dismal start to the season.

The spectacular recession meltdown of previous owner and chairman, Icelandic billionaire Bjorgolfur Gumundsson, has led to West Ham being owned, at least temporarily, by CB Holding, owned largely by Icelandic investment bank Straumur-Burdaras, themselves a victim of the global finance problems.

They have insisted that they are in no rush to sell but that the club must be self-financing. In practise, that meant that Zola had reluctantly to part with defender James Collins to finance the signing of Alessandro Diamanti.

Realistically, the best thing for West Ham would be the sale of the club, sooner rather than later. At the moment they are effectively in limbo, with a banker chairman who has already made it clear that the club will be eventually be sold.

A new owner, and there are interested parties, including former Birmingham chiefs David Sullivan and David Gold, would ideally mean new investment although the club's debt, said to be around £50million, will perhaps frighten off all but the big players from the east.

Is the between technical director Gianluca Nani and Zola wearing thin?

Zola has gone to great lengths since he took over at West Ham just over a year ago, to inform the fans about "the project" and his special relationship with chief executive Scott Duxbury and Nani.

They say that three's a crowd but Zola remains adamant that, despite the poor run of early results, this is one liaison that is as strong as ever.

He was, for example, furious at weekend suggestions that he has seriously fallen out with Nani, previously at Italian club Brescia, over transfer policy.

There were sugggestions today that Zola was locked in crisis talks with Nani and Duxbury after Saturday's draw with Fulham.

Nani has strong contacts in his native Italy and South America. The £6m close season signing of Diamanti from Livorno and Chilean Luis Jimenez on loan from Inter Milan, emphasised that connection but there has been criticism of Nani following the ill-starred and big-money acqusition of Savio from Brescia last season.

Savio, to be frank, looked well short of the required standard in his rare appearances last season and West Ham eventually cut their losses and sold the young striker back to Italian football a month ago.

To be fair, Zola, Nani and Duxbury will all feel some frustration at the club's current financial position but the West Ham manager is adamant the "project" still goes ahead.

Their mission - and Zola's ambition - is to sign top emerging players from home and abroad, and improve them in line with West Ham's reputation as a club who nurtures young talent.

Have the fans turned and are they exerting too much pressure on the management?

West Ham supporters of a certain age still talk about the night, in April 1976, when their team met Eintracht Frankfurt in the old Cup Winners' Cup at Upton Park.

A full house of raucous East Enders packed tightly in their intimate, compact stadium was not to the liking of some of the Eintracht players, who visibly blanched when they ran out to warm up.

Those days are gone though. On Sunday, led by Upson, Zola's team ran out to the usual chorus of Bubbles, and not much else.

It has not gone well for Zola and his players so far but I know the little man was perplexed by the supporters' stance against Fulham.

West Ham may have played like a drain for the previous 45 minutes but they did score an injury-time equaliser to salvage a point and some respectability.

The fans, or at least some of them, dutifully cheered Junior Stanislas's deflected shot but still booed the players off a couple of minutes later.

Zola needs the supporters to be with him at this time but must understand that the parameters have changed in recent years.

No longer do the fans, who fork out big money for their season tickets, feel it is their job necessarily to lift their team. Rather, it is the other way around.

Is the current squad good enough to keep the team in the top half of the table?

Last season Zola said his squad was too large. He is unlikely to make the same observation now.

In Robert Green, West Ham have the current first choice England goalkeeper although both he and captain and international teammate Upson, had poor matches at the back against Fulham.

Herita Ilunga, a notable Nani signing last season, is as sound as any left-back in the Premier League while central defender James Tomkins is a potential England player of the future.

Zola though, is missing the experience of Lucas Neill, now with Everton, at right-back and James Collins, sold to Aston Villa in the summer window, at the heart of his defence.

Julien Faubert is much improved but is not a natural defender, as illustrated with Fulham's second goal when he allowed the player he was supposed to be marking, Zoltan Gera, a free run.

The midfield is okay as long as Valon Behrami and youngster Jack Collison, who have both been injured, play. Without them, the midfield collectively lacks pace and dynamism.

Up front West Ham rely heavily on the much-improved Carlton Cole who has scored 11 goals in his last 19 matches for the club.

Without Cole, who has a realistic chance of playing for England in the World Cup next summer, Zola would have a real problem.

Is there any hope for the future?

With West Ham, there is always hope for the future, it's the present that's the problem.

The East London club has been producing outstanding young talent for years, Lampard, Cole, Carrick, Ferdinand, Johnson, Noble, to name but a few.

Chief executive Duxbiury is determined the maintain that tradition and for a club like West Ham, it has to make sense.

Ideally the idea would be to keep hold of future, outstanding talent but in the real world, Duxbury knows that, one day, they will move on.

Far better then to scout the embryonic star, improve him under the expert tutelage of Zola and the most experienced academy director in the business, Tony Carr, utilise his talent before maximising your profit margins when he decides to go.

Zola though, is desperate for the young players to develop now. Some, such as the excellent Tomkins and the dynamic Jack Collison, already have. Others, like Junior Stanislas, Zavon Hines, Freddie Sears currently on loan at Crystal Palace and big striker Frank Nouble, signed from Chelsea, have plenty of potential.

Further down, West Ham's current crop of Under 16's, are rumoured to be yet another special group on the club's assembly line.