Manuel Pellegrini: West Ham United’s 17th manager

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DaveWHU1964
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by DaveWHU1964 »

Even forgetting individual results such as Tottenham, Arsenal, the Mancs this has been a good first season for Pelligrini. Some seem to have soon forgotten that he inherited a team nearly relegated last season and which had lost two managers inside five months.

His wasn't an easy inheritance. People talk about the £85 million/ the £100 million whatever it was but that money was spent form a position of massive underinvestment/ cashing in in previous transfer windows. The squad he inherited was therefore in need of much work. In my view the sums talked about were the bare minimum required in order to get us back on an even keel. He spent the money as well as could be expected given that he had a lot to do, and still does for that matter. More one that later.

At no stage this season did it look like we were in the remotest danger of getting sucked into a relegation battle. That in itself is a step forward. Whether or not he was sometimes inflexible in his approach to a game's position he undeniably set us up to play the often elusive West Ham way. He gave opportunities to several young players and used them meaningfully which will assist their development. West Ham fans, especially maybe, those of us of a certain age will love that in itself.

Basically, I think he did as well as he could have in his first season. Crackers that some have taken the opportunity to snipe at him on occasion. People forget who we are. People forget what he has done in the game. Anyone think that the stature of West Ham through the early part of this century matches his in the game. In the unlikely event that you do then you're wrong. Truth is we are very unlikely to get better than him anytime soon.

It's not down to him now. It's down to others. Given say, a net £25 million we won't finish as high as we did this season. We'll fall further behind the likes of Wolves. Let that sink in for a minute. Wolves. Others will overtake us too - I have no doubts about that. But given a net £85-£100 million and we are capable of going for the Euro qualification via the league that was mentioned earlier. As are others mind, I only said capable. I suspect that Pellegrini's ambitions are greater than the club's hierarchy but I hope I'm wrong on that. Over to those others now.
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by e-20 »

Don't post much any more but after reading that can't help but express my admiration for a near perfect summing up of the realities of last season and the necessities for this Summer.
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by Denbighammer »

Dave, I make you spot on in what you say. The only thing was your assessment of Wolves. They are mega rich & have Jorge Mendes in their corner attracting top Portuguese talent. They, along with Leicester & Everton are our main competition for 7th next season.
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by Sloop John B »

Leicester, Wolves and Everton (iirc) have expensive loan players, so they will have lay a chunk of cash down just to stay still.

Wolves I think are an interesting one... Will they suffer the usual second season syndrome and will they resist the Big clubs for their players and manager... If not they could finish anywhere next season.

Congratulation to Marco Silva for finishing a season at the same club.

How long before the Leicester players get sick of hearing David Brent in the dressing room week after week.
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by Ironing Board »

Aceface wrote:
No worries. Easy mistake to make.

Because it you're doing it by that measure then we were also behind Cardiff and Fulham, who also improved their PL totals by more than our 10 points.
True, but Wolves have been the best team outside the top six, so they are not really comparable.
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by thejackhammer »

It's tough for Wolves next season.

Their strong season was built on using the same squad week in week out.

Chucking Europa League on top of that, makes it near impossible for them to sustain such a small squad usage.

Plus they need to turn their Jiminez loan into a permanent which will eat into their budget.
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by S-H »

thejackhammer wrote:
Plus they need to turn their Jiminez loan into a permanent which will eat into their budget.
They've already done it, haven't they?
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by thejackhammer »

Yes my bad, £30 million of their summer budget already gone just to maintain the status quo.
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by DaveWHU1964 »

On the transfer thread I've seen it said that we should target the best players of those in and around us to strengthen us and weaken them. I do understand the logic but it's part of a mentality we're also seeing an incarnation of here imho.

On this page we seem to be looking for/ hoping reasons as to why the likes of Wolves., Leicester, etc won't do as well next season which presumably means we can hope to slip by them due their hoped-for-by-us deficiencies.

I'd love us to flip this "they matter" mentality to one where we don't rely on what others do or others ****ing up in order for us to, on paper, improve. I'd like us to rely on ourselves not others. I'd like us to show confidence, ambition and let others worry about us instead of us worrying about them.

Luckily for me, this is the mentality that I think that Pelters has.

The "winning mentality" that he has said he wants to instil into the players and the club is part of such thinking. As is his not changing the way we play because we're scared of the opposition. It's an approach that has its drawbacks of course. What doesn't. But it's one that I like and want to see more of.
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by Crouchend_Hammer »

DaveWHU1964 wrote:On the transfer thread I've seen it said that we should target the best players of those in and around us to strengthen us and weaken them. I do understand the logic but it's part of a mentality we're also seeing an incarnation of here imho.
The other reason this is flawed is that in most cases, the really good players in those clubs i.e. the ones who leaving would make a big difference, will be those courted by the top 6

Sigurrdson, Richarlison, Gueye, Digne etc are not going to leave Everton for Us, Leicester or Wolves, in the same way Rice, Diop and Anderson wouldn't leave us for those clubs

Yes, we can target their next level players, but what is the point?
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by hammerman11 »

we need to refresh and change some personnel in key areas

LB DM and CF

Then we need to add to CB CM and a reserve keeper


Not sure about spending 26m on a brazillian who has never played in the premiership over someone like Hayden from newcastle for around 15m. Also tielemans and dedonker have been over here and done well in the league ,surely they are safer options as well as probably cheaper.


Then we have the spanish guy who is a creative midfielder. With nasri going we are left with lanzini and wilshere, both injury prone ,so we clearly need another creative central midfielder.

GK bentley 5m
LB Kourtis 8m
CB Maripan 10m
DM hayden 15m
CM spanish guy 20m
CF gomez 30m
CF brahimi free
88m spend
recoup some by selling cresswell 10m obiang 10m Hernandez perez 5m 10m oxford 5m hughill 5m fernandez 8m Cullen 3m
Total 56m
net spend 32m
Big wages saved carroll, Adrian, Hernandez, nasri perez hughill
over to the dildo brothers to deliver. There is no reason why we cannot do this.

add the following youngsters to first team squad browne holland johnson coventry diagana silva
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by YorksHammer »

Another season of being consistently inconsistent - same as it ever was.

If Arnie hadn't had his head turned, if Nasri hadn't been injured constantly, if Lanzini hadn't gone on International duty etc etc etc.

It'll never change, because it's the level we're at. Even in the Payet season we were maddeningly inconsistent.
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by hammerman11 »

hopefully with better and fitter players coming in then pelle should iron out the inconsistency.

the defence and defensive midfield areas need attention and pelle looks like sorting it out. hopefully !
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by Marky »

thejackhammer wrote:It's tough for Wolves next season.

Their strong season was built on using the same squad week in week out.

Chucking Europa League on top of that, makes it near impossible for them to sustain such a small squad usage.

Plus they need to turn their Jiminez loan into a permanent which will eat into their budget.
They will just spend lots of money and not care about FFP.

I would imagine they don’t have anywhere near our wage bill
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by Danny's Dyer Acting »

thejackhammer wrote:It's tough for Wolves next season.

Their strong season was built on using the same squad week in week out.

Chucking Europa League on top of that, makes it near impossible for them to sustain such a small squad usage.

Plus they need to turn their Jiminez loan into a permanent which will eat into their budget.
They're like us the first season up under Pards or even Billic's first year - a really good 13/14 players and then a major drop off beyond that. Look at their forwards.

Jimenez - looks good value at £30m in today's market!
Jota - great first season and still developing.
Cavaleiro - 3 in 23 last season, hasn't hit double figures since 2014 in Benfica's B team
Costa - 7 in 79 over the last two seasons
Traore - Already failed twice in the Prem with Boro and Villa

I'm not saying they don't deserve every plaudit they've had this season but let's wait and see....
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by Sloop John B »

DaveWHU1964 wrote:On the transfer thread I've seen it said that we should target the best players of those in and around us to strengthen us and weaken them. I do understand the logic but it's part of a mentality we're also seeing an incarnation of here imho.

On this page we seem to be looking for/ hoping reasons as to why the likes of Wolves., Leicester, etc won't do as well next season which presumably means we can hope to slip by them due their hoped-for-by-us deficiencies.

I'd love us to flip this "they matter" mentality to one where we don't rely on what others do or others ****ing up in order for us to, on paper, improve. I'd like us to rely on ourselves not others. I'd like us to show confidence, ambition and let others worry about us instead of us worrying about them.
I agree... My points were to simply address this idea that we've "lost ground" on these clubs...I posted elsewhere a while ago that no club outside of the top 6 has finished consistently in the top 11 in the past 6 years...

One of the reasons why I'm happy about this season is that there are clearly areas for improvment, unlike Bilic's first season where realistically he hit the glass ceiling and could only go one way.
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by Patito »

Sloop John B wrote:Leicester, Wolves and Everton (iirc) have expensive loan players, so they will have lay a chunk of cash down just to stay still.
You are quite right

Leicester - Tielemans (£40mil?)
Wolves - Jimenez (£30mil just signed perm), Dendoncker - £15mil
Everton - Andre Gomes & Zouma - they'd be £30mil each surely?
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by davids cross »

Just a personal view...

But I think there is less needed to be done in the summer than I can think of for quite a long time.

Naturally some will leave. But the basis of this squad is strong.

With an astute summer window, for we must keep on improving and spending............next season could be quite exciting.
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by wivenhoetim »

For me MP is the man with a plan. I honestly think he has a strategy, a long term vision and he will be recruiting into that plan. As others have said before its whether he can get the board to recognise the plan and take a similar strategic view, particularly with the summer budget. For me 3 good ins and 4/5 outs and giving youth a chance is what we need. Only time will tell. In the meantime lets collectively count our realistic blessings we have MP at the healm, if we can manage to give him the budget he requires for the next couple of seasons, I think his project will truly bear fruit. :thup:
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Re: Manuel Pellegrini West Ham United’s 17th manager

Post by YorksHammer »

It's not just money - it's about buying the right players, and the right amount of players, to improve the first team without disruption.

If it was just about money, Fulham wouldn't have gone down this season. Newcastle wouldn't have gone down three years ago.

Fortunately, I feel like with Pellegrini and Hussilos we have a team that will be aware of that.
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