Zola Given Two Games to Save His Job

In a contradictory article ESPN claim that Gianfranco Zola has two games to avoid the sack at West Ham. ESPN claim that Zola has to get six points from the next two games or he will be sacked.

However the article clearly has no basis for this claim and even acknowledges that,

"Gold and Sullivan had made it clear they intended to stick with Zola at least until the summer, and possibly beyond".


On Kumb's forum someone has produced an interesting analysis of the win ratio of West Ham's managers.

Billy Bonds (43.61) 1990–1994
Charlie Paynter (41.25) 1932–1950
Alan Pardew (41.10) 2003–2006
Ted Fenton (39.75) 1950–1961
Alan Curbishley (39.44) 2006–2008
John Lyall (39.12) 1974–1989
Syd King (38.87) 1901–1932
Harry Redknapp (37.00) 1994–2001
Lou Macari (36.84) 1989–1990
Ron Greenwood (35.07) 1961–1974
Glenn Roeder (31.40) 2001–2003
Gianfranco Zola (29.17) 2008–

Zola clearly has the worst win ratio of any West Ham manager. Some of the wins for the other managers did come from games in lower leagues. However, if you only look at West Ham's performances in the Premier League, then Zola's predecessor Alan Curbishley has the best win ratio, whilst Zola still remains bottom.

There does seem to be a changing attitude towards Zola amongst the fans. So, in fact, ESPN may not be too far wide of the mark with their assessment after all. If West Ham fail to get points off Wolves and Stoke then Zola will struggle to retain the all important support of the fans.