Chance would be a fine thing

It's amazing how fickle football fans can be. This time last season West Ham United were fighting for there lives in the Premiership. It took a last day win against Manchester United, to confirm there safety, in a mission that looked almost impossible at Christmas, even by Steve McQueen's standard's it was a great escape.

Twelve months on and the home faithful have all but forgotten Alan Curbishley's miraculous effort to keep them up. So much so that they are calling for the head of the former Charlton man.

The Hammers comfortable position of tenth in the league flatters them more than anything else, and if anything are truly over-achieving under Curbishley. The second half of the season is just a crash back down to earth, but unfortunately for Hammers fans it's a huge bump.

Three successive 4-0 defeats can't have helped the situation, that's when the first calls for the managers head came. And yes there form hasn't greatly improved a few wins here and there including one against a dreadful Derby side. In fact the reception the fans gave the players when they went back in-front was more of a sign not that they had gone in-front, but they had pulled away from a possible embarrassing result, a true reflecting of how Derby are seen in this league, an embarrassment.

Curbishley should be safe in the summer due to the backing he has from the back-room staff, but it's not the same story for others.

Manchester City manager Sven Goran Eriksson looks most likely to be in the firing line. Owner Thaskin Shinawatra he hinted that the former England manager will not be kept on for next season due to the teams faltering second half of the season, A claim that is shocking to say the least. After bringing in so many unknown players in the summer and having them gel so quickly is quite an achievement, not even Claudio Ranieri has a good a success in his opening spell after Abramovich's spending spree.

The second challenge was to keep the good form up, something that since Christmas has been a difficult thing to keep going. Since City's defeat at Sheffield United in the FA Cup they've never been the same.

But even so this is no reason for the manager to have his position under threat he has done a superb job, and yes they have over achieved in the early part of the season, but still a top ten finish is brilliant considering where the club were this time last season, unable to score at home and facing a grim season in mid-table. I think it would be a travesty if Eriksson lost his job and would top all the amazing sacking we have seen over the last few months, maybe even more ridiculous than Sam Allardyce's sacking by Newcastle earlier in the season

And finally from one man who has the fans on his back and another man who has the back room staff on his back, there is only one man who can top them all at the moment, Avram Grant/

Not only does he have the fans on his back because of the poor quality of football and his failure to win big games e.g Barnsley, Liverpool, Tottenham etc. He also has his owner Roman Abromovich on his back about the same issue, and some would say for the same reason he sacked Jose Mourinho. Surely the Russian won't keep on man who is doing the same as the man he replaced in the first place? To add to that he has the one thing that Mourinho had in abundance, and that was the media's backing.

Whatever Grant does, he cant seem to sell himself to the nations media and it seems that he can't do anything to change there the mind set that he's a boring git. However at the end of the day at a high profile cub like Chelsea the nations media won't get the manager sacked, results will. And to be fair they haven't been bad either. A few defeats when it's mattered, only the victory over Arsenal last month can be described as a massive win in a equally massive game.

If you look at the stats a team in the Semi-final of the champions league, and second in the league 3 points behind the leaders with a possibility of winning a double in his first season in charge and he's meant to be under pressure? It's ludicrous to me. Sounds like whatever Chelsea do there owner will never be happy, it's Real Madrid syndrome. And like there learning, there's no such thing as a quick fix.

I wouldn't be surprised one little bit that if Grant wins both Premiership and Champions league he will still get sacked. His position is untenable, and however much his team succeed on the pitch, it's how the team plays that matters, well at least to one man it is. Why do a team riding so high need another manager to push them forward, if we kept faith in the men in charge we might actually get somewhere.