The appointment of Avram Grant offers the Israeli the chance he craves: to build a successful team over a number of years
Avram Grant’s appointment as West Ham manager by David Gold and David Sullivan appears a bespoke fit for club and manager, though he may have to convince the hard-to-please constituency found among all football fans, a challenge the Israeli coasted through in his previous two appointments in England.
By taking Chelsea to within a John Terry penalty miss of claiming the 2008 Champions League, then following this up with the small miracle of leading Portsmouth to this season’s FA Cup final while the club imploded around him, Grant shrugged off the arriviste label unfairly stuck on him when succeeding José Mourinho at Stamford Bridge in September 2007.
Grant had only got that gig, the prevailing logic went, because he was big friends with Roman Abramovich, Chelsea’s billionaire owner. The English section of Grant’s CV now features trips to the FA Cup and Champions League finals, further runners-up spots in the 2008 Carling Cup and 2007-08 Premier League (both with Chelsea), plus evidence of sizeable reserves of tenacity and dignity displayed while steering Portsmouth through their annus horribilis.
Gold and Sullivan will have noted how four owners, a transfer embargo, the nine-point penalty for entering administration, subsequent relegation to the Championship and his players’ knowledge that most would not be performing at Fratton Park next season did not stop Grant from coming within another missed spot-kick (by Kevin-Prince Boateng) of giving Chelsea a major scare at Wembley in the Cup final.
Once the full extent of how he had been misled by the Portsmouth hierarchy became clear Grant’s mantra was that he could not care less if there had been £100 or £10m to spend. All that mattered was to be told the budget by his bosses, then know that this sum would not change each time he arrived for training.
Grant stated when deliberating over his Portsmouth future that his preference was for long-term residency at a club, so that he could have the opportunity to do what the 55-year-old craves: to build a successful team over a number of years.
All of this will be sweet-sounding to Sullivan and Gold. On taking over West Ham in January they declared that mammoth cuts were required to clear the mess left by the regime of Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, the Icelandic owner whose gift to the club was a £100m hole in the finances.
Will Grant’s appointment have the Boleyn Ground unconditionally swooning? It seems doubtful. A quick sample of West Ham supporters and neutrals suggests the naysayers feel a younger, more dynamic figure than Grant should be the man to push the club on. Or that the jury remains out regarding the true measure of his managerial smarts, despite his achievements at Portsmouth and Chelsea.
What all Hammers enthusiasts are certainly getting, though, is a man who is unfazed by Gold and Sullivan’s insistence so far in managing the team from the directors’ box, as Gianfranco Zola, Grant’s predecessor, endured. Who knows: the man known as “The Magician” in Israel could be the manager to silence the two Davids, while bringing stability and glory to a club whose last taste came 30 years ago, courtesy of Trevor Brooking’s header against Arsenal in the 1980 FA Cup final.
West Ham UnitedAvram GrantJamie Jacksonguardian.co.uk
