Do you people still want them? Every time I watched West Ham this season they were atrocious. Poor defending(what happened to Steve Clarke's expertise) and totally toothless upfront.

I know they lack funds to improve the squad but the coaching staff should certainly be held responsible for total lack of organization in the way the team sets out to play. Watched them again last night vs Pool and they were never at the races.

Franco may be a Chelsea legend but he's got long way to go before he can be considered a candidate to take over at the Bridge.

GIIIAN-FRANCO ZOOOOLA

He's sending West Ham down

Gianfranco Zola

He's sending West Ham down

Do you people still want them? Every time I watched West Ham this season they were atrocious. Poor defending(what happened to Steve Clarke's expertise) and totally toothless upfront.

I know they lack funds to improve the squad but the coaching staff should certainly be held responsible for total lack of organization in the way the team sets out to play. Watched them again last night vs Pool and they were never at the races.

Franco may be a Chelsea legend but he's got long way to go before he can be considered a candidate to take over at the Bridge.

They were both OK when they had hair!

I would take Clarke bask as an assistant without any hesitation. Zola - not a chance. He needs to prove himself a lot better than he has before he is even an outside bet as a future Chelsea manager.

I would give Clarke the assistant job and Zola a coaching job. He was regarded as a very good coach before he went to west ham. Being a coach and being a manager are very different things. The youngsters at the club would look up to him as well. So even though he is clearly inept as a manager at the minute i think he could do a job there still.

I think Di Matteo is currently the best of that generation who went to football management. Dan was doing superbly but went for the money and is sitting now somewhere in Russia. Zola was good at some stage but clearly needs to take control in the dressing room. Roberto although has guaranteed a Prem football for WBA next season and is playing with style there. Only thing is instability but that´s the case in Championship I guess. Lets see what he can do up here next season. Well and Wisey.... lets not even start:D

In fairness it's probably a little to do with the players they have. Injuries haven't helped them and I couldn't really name one player in their squad who I'd force someone out of ours for. To be honest two of their best players are Parker and Cole, both who turned out not to be good enough to play for us (though I wouldn't have minded keeping Parker as a squad player here.)

Not sure what others feel on here, but I always felt Steve Clarke should have been given the reigns as manager when Jose left, or at the very least after Grant left. He had been on the staff here for so many years, had learnt from both Mourinho and Ranieri and should have been given a chance. Certainly would have saved us some cash had we picked him and not Scolari.

Perhaps his stint with Zola at West Ham has proved me wrong in terms of his abilities, but I've no doubt the reason he left was because he wanted to manage at some point, and he didn't see that oppurtunity coming here. So he'd probably never come back, but as loz said if the oppurtunity arose I'd take him back on in a heartbeat, our defending has never been the same since he left.

Gianfranco on the other hand was thrown in too soon. He wasn't up to a Premier League job when he was given it (which I suppose why they bought in Clarke as well), and his career and West Ham have suffered for it (not that I give a toss about West Ham of course.) I'd suggest he'll get sacked shortly if they go down or have a poor start to next year and where he goes from there I don't know.

they have certainly disappointed this year...clarke has been particularly shown up having left us demanding more say/responsibility...he's damaged goods and has a lot to prove to be given another chance back at SB...but then again he's better than wilkins so maybe not!!

I would take Clarke bask as an assistant without any hesitation. Zola - not a chance. He needs to prove himself a lot better than he has before he is even an outside bet as a future Chelsea manager.

I'd be totally the opposite.

Think Zola would be a great asset in a coaching type role with the youth team & first team. Just concentrating on technical abilities and ball skills, positional awareness - all that sort of thing. Nothing actually managerial or being involved with transfers / team selection.

Can't see what Clarkey would offer us though. You would have thought that his role at West Ham would be to make them pretty sound defensively and they do have two "England Internationals" in that defence. But every time I see them they just get worse. Shocking defensively against the dippers on Monday.

I'd be totally the opposite.

Think Zola would be a great asset in a coaching type role with the youth team & first team. Just concentrating on technical abilities and ball skills, positional awareness - all that sort of thing. Nothing actually managerial or being involved with transfers / team selection.

Can't see what Clarkey would offer us though. You would have thought that his role at West Ham would be to make them pretty sound defensively and they do have two "England Internationals" in that defence. But every time I see them they just get worse. Shocking defensively against the dippers on Monday.

Zola being Italian would also be of great help. But I dont think its possible considering Carlo and Zola weren't exactly pally and all that when they were last employed together.

I agree in part with Nibs as I think Zola would be great to have in some sort of technical coaching role with the young players although I can't imagine he'd settle for it.

I also agree that although many believe Clarke carried us through Avram Grants time with us he has shown nothing at West Ham to say our defensive stability was as much down to him as most believe, ok you can only work with what you have but they have hardly improved defensively since hes been there.

I don't see much wrong with our set up now and think Butch does a great job with the media and as a help with the language for Carlo..I can't comment with any conviction on what he adds tactically or on the training pitch as it would be guesswork and so fairly pointless and swayed by my opinion of him in general.

Edited April 21, 201016 yr by Chippy

I think Zola is way too nice a guy to be a truly great manager, you need to be ruthless and tough and instill a bit of fear to get the best out of a group footballers.

Great players don't make great managers - Maradona, Blanchflower, Hoddle, Keegan for example.

How good as players were: Mourinho, Ferguson, Paisley, Wenger, Guardiola, the bloke who coached Brazil 1970 ?

How good as players were: Mourinho, Ferguson, Paisley, Wenger, Guardiola, the bloke who coached Brazil 1970 ?

Guardiola was actually very good(important player for both Barcelona and Spain) and I believe Zagallo("the bloke who coached Brazil 1970") won the World Cup both as a player(twice?) and manager, so although I'm too young to remember how good he was as a player, he couldn't have been rubbish if he was part of those Brazilian teams.