Tame surrender amid home jeers brings an end to Pellegrini’s reign
Manuel Pellegrini, his pallid complexion even greyer than ever, walked into his post-match press conference as a dead man walking.
He knew David Sullivan and the equally furious David Gold already had at least one finger each on the trigger, but the Chilean barely flinched as he went through the motions of defending another humiliating display.
“That’s a question I cannot answer,” he said when asked if he would still be in charge against Bournemouth.
As it turned out, he would get his answer just five minutes later, at 9pm.
Sullivan and Gold, the club’s joint chairmen, were both on hand to fire the 66-year-old immediately after he walked into the boardroom.
His West Ham adventure, having spent more than £100million over the summer, will be remembered as a disaster. Pellegrini’s expensively assembled side started the season in fine form, but a run of two wins from 14 matches – and four straight home defeats – saw them tumble from fourth to 17th in the space of three months.
Sullivan said it was a “great disappointment that we’ve had to make this decision”. He added: “Manuel is a gentleman and it has been a real pleasure to work with someone of his calibre. However, it has become clear that a change is required to get the club back on track in line with our ambitions this season.”
As Telegraph Sport reported yesterday, West Ham had already been mithering over seeking a leading British candidate after West Ham’s Boxing Day defeat at Crystal Palace. David Moyes, Tony Pulis and Chris Hughton are now believed to be in contention, at least until the end of the season.
Pellegrini’s fate was ultimately sealed by a side that had visibly given up on him, showing less fight yesterday than the legions of bargain-hungry shoppers at nearby Westfield shopping centre. A second-string Leicester, forced into wholesale changes after back-to-back defeats to Manchester City and Liverpool, were worthy victors against a side who risk being sucked into the bottom three.
Devoid of any sense of self-belief, West Ham were comfortably outclassed, with Leicester relying on goals from Kelechi Iheanacho and Demarai Gray. Gray was one of nine changes made by Brendan Rodgers, with Jamie Vardy absent following the birth of his daughter earlier in the day.
“He’s been fantastic for me,” Rodgers said of Gray. “You have to show real character when you miss a penalty early on but he kept running, his body language was good and it was a brilliant finish.”
The victory took second-placed Leicester four points clear of Manchester City, but they remain 10 points behind leaders Liverpool.
In stark contrast are West Ham. The club has worked hard to improve the atmosphere at the former Olympic Stadium, but many fans would still move back to Upton Park in a heartbeat.
The loudest noises after kick off were jeers as fans voiced their disapproval at Pellegrini’s substitutions. “You’re not up to it – get out of our club,” screamed one woman, breaking a particularly quiet passage of play.
Before a ball had been kicked, the pessimists were resigned to losing a fourth Premier League home fixture on the bounce for the first time since Jan 2006.
Pellegrini responded to the pressure by benching Mark Noble and handing Declan Rice the captain’s armband. Leicester’s nine changes meant only Kasper Schmeichel and Jonny Evans retained their spots from the side defeated 4-0 by Liverpool just 45 hours and 30 minutes earlier.
The alarm bells were soon ringing for West Ham when Łukasz Fabiański, back in the side for the first time since being injured in September, recklessly charged into Iheanacho inside the box. A tame penalty by Gray gave the booked goalkeeper an immediate invitation to redeem himself.
Leicester remained the more potent force and broke the deadlock when Iheanacho pounced to nod home from Ayoze Perez, who had brilliantly kept the ball in play with a headed pass back across goal from the byline.
West Ham rallied briefly in the closing minutes of the first half. Sebastien Haller fired wide before Pablo Fornals equalised with a neatly-taken rightfooted effort from Felipe Anderson’s cross. However, Leicester found their groove in the second half as West Ham were sent completely off the tracks. Who needs Vardy when Perez’s fleet of foot can tear defences open instead?
The Spaniard skipped past three hapless defenders before squaring into the path of Gray, who side-footed coolly into the far corner of despairing Fabianski’s goal.
West Ham’s defending was not that of a side fighting for an under-pressure manager and Carlos Sanchez, the most guilty party of all – having let Gray drift past him – was soon hauled off to jeers from his own fans.
“We are staying up,” the Leicester fans sang with tongue firmly in cheek. And then added: “And you’re going down with the Villa.”
The atmosphere was flat and so too was West Ham’s football. Both Gray and Morgan should have taken the game beyond the home side, but both fired wide from close range.
It was just the second time in Rodgers’ career that he had made nine changes to his line-up, the previous time being at Swansea for a cup tie.
“It’s a brilliant testament to the players,” he said of the victory. West Ham (4-2-3-1) Fabianski 6; Fredericks 5, Balbuena 5, Diop 5, Masuaku 5; Rice 5, Sanchez 4 (Snodgrass 62); Fornals 6, Lanzini 5 (Ajeti 70), Felipe Anderson 5; Haller 5 (Antonio 55). Subs Reid, Zabaleta, Roberto (g), Noble. Booked Fabianski, Masuaku, Diop, Rice. Leicester City (4-4-2) Schmeichel 7; Justin 6, Morgan 6, Evans 6, Fuchs 6; Gray 8 (Barnes 83), Mendy 6 (Ndidi 78), Choudhury 6, Albrighton 7; Perez 7 (Maddison 64), Iheanacho 6. Subs Chilwell, Soyuncu, Tielemans, Ward (g). Booked Choudhury. Referee David Coote (Nottinghamshire).