Players' backing keeps Roeder bubbling along

West Ham's new manager will not panic despite the departure of three leading lights

Having been brought up as a West Ham United supporter, albeit in Woodford – where east London becomes slightly posher – Glenn Roeder has long been familiar with the club's melancholic song "Bubbles" and all that stuff about fortune always hiding, while dreams fade and die (usually in the second half of the season).

Three weeks before the start of his first campaign as a Premiership manager, he is equally well aware of a similar mood of weary resignation among the East End public, and the need for at least two more quality signings if pessimistic talk of relegation is to be banished.

The former Orient, Queen's Park Rangers and Newcastle United defender was promoted from coaching the reserves last month, after various potential successors to Harry Redknapp, such as Charlton's Alan Curbishley and the Manchester United assistant manager Steve McClaren, decided they were better off elsewhere.

The notion that anyone would prefer managing Charlton Athletic or Middlesbrough to West Ham was seen as an insult by the more belligerent fans, who had been expecting someone with a higher profile – not to say pro-file – than an inexperienced manager perceived to have failed at Gillingham and Watford.

Others believe it to be an apt comment on the new realities. A chunky pre-season issue of the fanzine Over Land And Sea shows deep divisions among supporters over the decision to part company with Redknapp, but no fewer than 17 articles out of 20 are in favour of giving Roeder a chance and only one author has taken up the club's offer of a refund on his season-ticket.

If two sentences from the 60 pages of invective sum up the prevailing feeling, they are those reading: "How typical of the West Ham board to go for the cheapest option available". And: "It's not going to be great and it's probably not even going to be good, it's probably going to be very nasty and messy for the greater part of the season".

Being a realistic and intelligent man, the 45-year-old Roeder did not exactly expect a ticker-tape welcome along the Romford Road. "I was saying to [the former England coach] Terry Venables recently that some people chase jobs all their lives, but I've just stood still and it's come to me," he said. "Had you said to me a few months ago that I was likely to be in this position, I'd probably have disagreed with you."

It was more important to him that he should have the backing of the dressing-room, which has made Joe Cole's repeated professions of support all the more gratifying. The club's most naturally gifted young player has praised Roeder as "a really talented coach" and remarked, significantly, that "the atmosphere around the club so far has been far more professional".

Cole's reward will be to play in the position he covets, on the left of midfield, as the new manager opts for a 4-4-2 system rather than Redknapp's intermittently successful 3-5-2. "I think one day Joe will probably find himself playing central midfield but at the moment he's more dangerous coming from a wider position," Roeder said. "He also feels that coming in from that wide-left position on his right foot may be his best opportunity to get into the England team."

Equally important will be the contribution on the other flank of Trevor Sinclair, whose lively running in a friendly at Peterborough on Tuesday was a reminder of how much he was missed after Christmas last season, as the team slumped from eighth place to 15th, the lowest finish in Redknapp's seven years in charge.

Paolo Di Canio, an alternately inspired and disillusioned captain, and Frédéric Kanouté are also backing Roeder, but Frank Lampard, Stuart Pearce and Igor Stimac have gone, leaving the defence, in particular, badly understrength.

Roeder is pursuing Hannu Tihinen, the Finnish centre-half who made a good impression while on loan, and Manchester United's midfielder Jonathan Greening, and showing an acute awareness of the financial constraints that his predecessor ultimately found too constricting: "I'm trying to shave as much as I can off fees, because every bit I save might get me another player. There's an awful lot of ordinary players out there, who would give us more numbers, which we're desperate for, but won't improve the team.

"I went to France twice last week and then spent Saturday in Stockholm; Stockholm was very nice but the game was very poor. But with David James' signing, I made a statement, and he also made a statement by being prepared to come to West Ham."

Roeder could certainly do with a good start, the chances of which have not been helped by opening fixtures against Liverpool and Leeds United, and the postponement of the first home game against Chelsea because local police decided spectators could not find their way in and out of the new main stand for an evening match.

Capturing the man who could be England's first-choice goalkeeper before long has lightened some of the gloom, but it may be the quality of those who follow him that determines whether Roeder's dream fades and dies.