Source: Team_Talk
Zola's on his way no matter what
TEAMtalk feels Gianfranco Zola is 'too nice' for Premier League management - and will leave Upton Park this summer even if they stay up.[LNB] Gianfranco Zola trots out a slick response to criticism that his West Ham side lack bite and fight.[LNB]"I would rather change my job than change my principles."[LNB]You would expect no less. The little Italian is one of football's good guys. A lover of the 'Beautiful Game'. A character of integrity and independent thought.[LNB]But in three weeks' time Zola will not get a say in changing his job. All the signs say he will be drummed out of Upton Park by new owners David Sullivan and David Gold regardless of whether West Ham have survived in the Premier League.[LNB]With three matches remaining, the Hammers might yet be saved by the three-point gap and superior goal difference which separates them from 18th-placed Hull.[LNB]Yet it would change nothing.[LNB]Zola simply does not appear to have what it takes to be a top-notch manager in the world's most competitive league. Saying that about a man whose football philosophy is all about magic and wonder is a bit like telling an eight-year-old there is no Santa Claus. There is no pleasure in it.[LNB]Zola, after all, is all about fancy flicks, tidy passing, high tempo, creative vision and relentless attacking. Just as he was as a player at Chelsea when he became arguably the most-loved foreigner, alongside Arsenal's Thierry Henry, to have played in the English game.[LNB]That is fine so long as you are winning. When you have won just seven of 35 league matches this season, however, there is clearly something missing.[LNB]Zola's side lack defiance. They lack the bloody-minded aggression to scrap for their own survival, never more apparent than on Monday when they went down to Liverpool with barely a whimper.[LNB]With the obvious exclusion of a 2-2 draw against Arsenal, when they came back from two goals down, and a late draw at Everton, that absence of steeliness has been obvious all season.[LNB]Zola could blame his predicament on the fact that players have been off-loaded from under his nose to ease the club's financial problems this past year.[LNB]He could point to bad luck, injuries to key players such as Carlton Cole, off-the-pitch distractions involving the sale of the club and the fact that every time co-owner Sullivan opens his mouth he seems to undermine the authority of his most important employee.[LNB]But in the end the fact remains that as a manager, a man-motivator, a wheeler and dealer in the murky world of football Zola is not in his comfort zone. He hasn't been since he hung up his boots at the age of 38 at Cagliari five years ago.[LNB]Zola was a genius on the pitch. But those talents are not always directly transferable to the office or the coaching ground.[LNB]Bobby Charlton and Bobby Moore, arguably the greatest English players in history, failed miserably in management. So did World Cup hat-trick hero Sir Geoff Hurst. Alan Shearer, too, found the task was a bit more demanding than issuing a few rallying speeches in his short time as a fire fighter at Newcastle.[LNB]The best Italian coaches have been those who balance the merest sprinkling of flair and invention with a solid bedrock of pragmatism.[LNB]Men such as Chelsea's Carlo Ancelotti, who won two Champions League trophies as manager of AC Milan, and England's Fabio Capello, whose principles are clear and precise and rooted in strict discipline.[LNB]With Hull facing home matches against Sunderland and Liverpool and travelling to Wigan in between, West Ham might yet stave off 'Armageddon,' as Sullivan describes relegation to the Championship.[LNB]But, harsh as it sounds, it will be despite Zola's principles, not because of them.
