EPL, Premiership, English Premier League

Italian Gianfranco Zola is en route to becoming West Ham’s next manager. Zola used to play for Chelsea and is currently the Italian Under-21 Coach. He could well be named manager by the end of the week as his Under-21 team has a game to play this Tuesday. West Ham’s Italian technical director Gianluca Nani and chief executive Scott Duxbury have led the search for a new manager. While his fellow Italian Roberto Donadoni was also on the shortlist he recently removed himself because he thought the Hammers were not interested enough. Donadoni formerly managed the Italian team and was recently fired from the Italian Euro 208 job due to poor performance. ”I would like to thank West Ham United Football Club for approaching and speaking with me in relation to the vacant manager’s position at the club. ‘I welcomed the opportunity of speaking with such a prominent Premiership club and of course, the opportunity of coming to the English Premiership. However, is does appear that the board have not yet, after some time, come to an agreement and a conclusion on who the successful candidate should be. It is important for me to feel that I have the full support of the club and I have therefore this morning taken the decision to withdraw myself from the candidate shortlist for the club.”

Croatian Slaven Bilic also removed himself from the shortlist after it proved improbable that he could resign as the Croatian national manager. Danish Michael Laudrup, who previously managed Spanish team Getafe also was removed from the list when he accepted an offer from Spartak Moscow.

A club advisor described Zola as impressive: ”Zola has a lot of experience in the Premier League, he was admired by every fan in the league irrespective of which club they supported. He has built a big reputation for himself in Italy. He hasn’t Premier League experience as a manager but he understands the Premier League very much. They are moving fast. They would like to appoint a new manager before the weekend but it is a process they will consider carefully. It is a different system, a more European system of working and it will be a manager who will be working under that style in order to minimise and avoid errors which have occurred in the past.”