With a 3rd consecutive season outside of the top flight looming, West Ham United manager Alan Pardew might want to consider his future, having just received the only notice worse than a vote of confidence ; no vote whatsoever.
From the Guardian’s Matt Scott :
Alan Pardew is expected to be in charge of West Ham United for Saturday’s FA Cup fourth-round match against Sheffield United despite the growing clamour for his dismissal after three successive league defeats.
Pardew (above), who joined West Ham from Reading in October 2003 and had a brief to secure promotion this season after presiding over play-off final defeat last May, saw his side slip to ninth in the Championship after Sunday’s 2-1 defeat by Derby County on top of Saturday’s games. That left them 12 points behind second-placed Wigan and led to fresh calls for Pardew’s head.
But Paul Aldridge, the club’s managing director, said: “I don’t want to get into a position where we are giving him [Pardew] a vote of confidence because that is the last thing any manager wants.
“We have never put a timescale on our backing for him. We will never say it is until the end of the season or until the beginning of next season. We are in the results business.”
Pardew is privately adamant that he has fulfilled another part of his brief in reducing the club’s wage bill by more than £10m to £23.2m over the 12 months to last May.
Former Lazio, Juventus and Italian national team chief Dino Zoff (above) has been named Fiorentina’s 3rd manager of the season. Zoff, who took the Azzuri to the Euro 2000 final against France (after an upset semi-final win over the Netherlands in Amsterdam), has been out of soccer for the past 3 years. Fiorentina are currently in 15th place in Serie A.