Today the West Ham job is available. For about 24 hours. It looks as if David Moyes might get it, which ends farcical rumours about him winding up at Sevco, which was about as unlikely as me applying for it and getting an interview.
The deal isn’t sealed yet, and whilst it remains undone there will be speculation.
With Bilic’s blood not yet cold on the West Ham dressing room floor one of TalkSport’s presenters, Ian Abrahams, threw a suggestion into the Thought Pool.
It’s not a ridiculous one, except that of course it is … that the club should pull out all the stops and appoint Brendan Rodgers.
Just a couple of things wrong with that scenario.
One is that Brendan Rodgers has a job. Two is that he’s happy in that job. More than happy, as you’ll all be aware. Three is that he has a long term contract.
And fourth, and this is where a lot of people will find difficulty with what I’m saying, fourth is that Celtic is a bigger club than West Ham United.
Forget the Premiership; it’s an overblown league awash in funny money which hasn’t improved the quality of most of the clubs one iota, or their prospects. West Ham is a mid-table club lucky to get into Europe most years. Celtic is a global giant.
“I think they [West Ham board] should show some ambition and fly up to Glasgow and open a suitcase and say ‘how much Brendan?’” Abrahams said, echoing comments made before Bilic had even been sacked by Alan Brazil.
Because he and others down there think it’s all about the money, that it’s the only thing that counts.
Incredibly, Abrahams asked what Brendan has to achieve now at Celtic Park except “just win more titles?”
As if that’s not what every manager dreams of.
As if he’ll ever win one of them from the Hammers dugout.
Brendan would be swapping silverware for mid-table ignominy … and a suitcase full of money, of course. Let’s not forget that.
And what’s the endgame?
According to Abrahams it’s “Manage West Ham, big club, big ambition and big things to do at West Ham and then you can move back to a top six club in the Premier League …”
Unreal. So take a step down in order to move forward?
What a tempting offer! Brendan must be gutted he signed the four-year deal.
West Ham is a “big club” in that the EPL is a big league.
I am not running them down, but let’s not beat around the bush; they’ve never finished higher than third in the top flight (and that’s a pipedream now), haven’t been in a cup final since 2006 and the days of them having “three players in a World Cup winning team” are far behind them.
It is flattering to have our manager get attention like this; of course it is.
Brendan will be duly grateful for the kind words, and there are a lot of them about him in Abraham’s interview, but the running down of Scotland, the talking down of his achievements here, the contempt those remarks betray for Celtic … it’s not going to fly.