Hammers hit target
the ground, and United are without a win in six matches.
Gabbidon firmly believes that owners Sullivan and Gold have presided over a botched reboot.
He added: “I wouldn’t say it is the manager’s fault. He’s come into a difficult situation and he’s trying to rectify it.
Blame
“The owners have to take the brunt of the blame. For a long time, they have promised a lot and not delivered. That’s where the frustration of the fans lies – not with the manager.
“For me, it always seems to be half-measures. You can only do that for so long and then it catches up with you. It looks on the surface as though they have spent money. But when you look at those players who have gone out, then the net spend is not as big as some people may think.
“Then, you look at the training ground. It was an old training ground when I was first there back in 2005.
“They need a new training ground – but they’ve been using the one for their academy. The stadium itself isn’t their own and it’s multi-purpose, not especially suitable for football.
“So there are lot of things that have been done by half-measures.
“Every club is now spending, trying to develop and I just think the West Ham outlook has been more about a business perspective.
“But they must get the football side right first, and the business success
only follows on the back of that.” Gabbidon says new January signings Jarrod Bowen and Tomas Soucek offer some hope of escape from the drop, but he can’t dodge the parallels with 2011.
He said: “We didn’t sign enough players pre-season. We brought guys in on loan in the January and by then it was too late. The club were cutting corners, even back then.
“The fans got on the players’ backs and it became difficult to play at home.
“At least a couple of players just didn’t even want to be out there.
“It would be disastrous to get relegated again now, so damaging to the club – but it’s going to happen if they don’t start getting results.”