Tactically inept and without a plan, West Ham needed to sack Slaven Bilic long ago - now David Moyes is their prize

The last game of the Bilic era was desperately typical and showed exactly why he had to go - no plan, no organisation, no intelligence and no real fight

Slaven Bilic can have no complaints after being sacked by West Ham (AFP)

It should be at least be a mild surprise when a team with top-half ambitions concedes four goals at home to anyone. But when West Ham United lost 4-1 to Liverpool on Saturday can anyone say it was unexpected?

The last game of the Slaven Bilic era at West Ham was desperately typical of so much of their football since he was in charge, and showed exactly why he had to go. No plan, no organisation, no intelligence and no real fight.

It could just as easily have been the 3-0 home defeat to free-scoring Brighton and Hove Albion last month, the 4-0 defeat to Liverpool back in Stratford in May, the 4-0 or 5-0 hammerings by Manchester City last winter or the 5-1 to Arsenal 11 months ago. Both Arsenal and Manchester City, off the back of those games, rated Bilic’s West Ham as tactically the worst side in the Premier League.

Bilic is clearly an impressive man and has been a successful manager, first with Croatia, then briefly with Besiktas, and in his first season at Upton Park. But his successes are drawn from his personality: charismatic, persuasive and intelligent, rather than his methods. He was exactly the right man when he replaced Sam Allardyce in 2015 to rally and unite the fans, to harness the emotional power of the final year at Upton Park and to spark the players into performing above themselves. It certainly helped, too, that they had one brilliant player in Dimitri Payet who could win games by himself.

West Ham’s seventh-place finish in 2015-16 was an achievement of sorts but it was all downhill from there. The problem is that Bilic is a short-term manager and soon enough the effects of his charisma and intelligence started to wear off. Players will not be in awe of a manager forever. But when that power dissipated, what was left in its place?

Bilic’s West Ham never played with any real identity or structure, or any sense that they were improving towards some idealised standard of performance. Even on their good nights – the two famous 1-0 wins against Tottenham – it felt as if Bilic had happened to land on the right plan and had got his players up for the occasion.

But they were the exceptions, rather than the rule. And while the wins over Tottenham were sweet, West Ham could only watch as Mauricio Pochettino’s Spurs launched two consecutive title challenges while Bilic’s side did nothing of the sort. There is the benefit of having a manager with a philosophy of football and the coaching methods to play it.

Defeat to West Ham was the last straw (Getty)

Of course there are other reasons which made Bilic’s life difficult. The move from Upton Park to the London Stadium sucked much of the energy out of the club and he was always dealing with haphazard recruitment and an old, tired, bloated squad. And yet he was not entirely innocent in all this. He pulled out of a move for N’Golo Kante in 2015, or for Kelechi Iheanacho this summer when they desperately needed a striker. And it was Bilic who prioritised the signings of Gokhan Tore from Besiktas on loan and then Marko Arnautovic this summer.

By the time David Sullivan was publicly undermining Bilic this summer over the failure to sign Renato Sanches or Grzegorz Krychowiak, as part of the ludicrous William Carvalho saga, the writing was on the wall. It was only Sullivan’s unwillingness to pay off the last year of Bilic’s contract, and that 1-0 defeat of Spurs in May, that kept Bilic in the West Ham job this summer. At the end of last season West Ham had been asking after David Wagner and Marco Silva about replacing Bilic.

But they waited too long and are now left with David Moyes. It is the price they must pay for leaving this decision far too long.