As the sands of time seem to ebb away on the managerial status of Alan Pardew, it is interesting to know why so many of the West Ham fans have turned their back on this once very popular person.

Although it may be hard to believe, it is not solely because the team is in a tail spin any stunt pilot would be proud of, but that he has continued to play people who have not got the will to fight for the club, and who are looking for the earliest opportunity to jump ship and in their minds go to a bigger club. Pardew's refusal to see what is patently obvious to all of us who have seen the team this year is mystifying. These under-achievers will, and I have little doubt of this, get him the sack.

You only had to see Eggert Magnusson at Bolton to see that the new owners will not put up with this level of performance. His impression of the invisible man was alarmingly realistic; first he merely tucked his chin into his coat, but after the fourth goal went in he was visibly shocked and attempted to retreat into his coat completely to try to ignore the awful display. If we had played for 10 minutes more I reckon the only thing left in his seat would have been his scarf and coat.

With the appalling and pathetic excuse of a performance following from an equally dreadful one on Wednesday, it surely will not be long before Pardew gets the call into the chairman’s office to be relieved of his duties. The Icelandic consortium have spent over £100 million on purchasing the club and common sense dictates they will not allow Pardew to continue with the job for much longer.

Another deeply worrying sign for all those who care about West Ham is the tendency to play the long ball game up to a player who is not that good in the air, and this has meant that the opposition regain possession and begin yet another assault on the beleaguered defence. Not only is this causing untold difficulties for the team but it flies in the face of a once proud tradition of playing football in the 'right way'.

I cannot remember being so upset by any manager’s tactics as I have been by those employed by Pardew recently. We can also look at periods during our time in the fizzy-pop league where he reverted to this style, and at times this brought success, but in the big league teams are way too good to be caught out by these poor tactics. Yet for some reason the only person unable to see this is the manager.

After Wednesday’s debacle Pardew said that he would have to look at changes for the visit to Bolton, and there was a collective sigh of relief that he had actually had enough of the under-performers and that some players would be left out due to their lack of form. Come match day all the usual suspects retained their places and put on another woeful show for the many travelling supporters who must be questioning their sanity.

The inability to integrate two fantastic footballers has also led to many once loyal to Pardew turning against him. I feel that Javier Mascherano has been very badly treated by the club, and it seems certain that he will move on as soon as he possibly can. He probably doesn’t even care now when he is left out of the 16-man squad and is desperate to go. I for one am deeply disappointed by this as it is not often that we get players of his ability at our club, and to leave him languishing in the reserves is nothing short of disgraceful, especially considering the quality of the football we have played.

At least Carlos Tevez has been given a chance, and has done himself and us proud. And how is he repaid? He is substituted at every opportunity. Maybe these players were given to the club and the manager had little choice in the matter, but he should have welcomed their arrival and used it to move the club forward, but he has not.

We are two points from safety, we have scored only two goals away from home, we have managed just one point on our travels. We haven’t scored for more than 12 hours away, and we have lost five of the last six games. I, for one, cannot see this being allowed to continue too much longer.

West Ham owe a huge debt of gratitude to Alan Pardew for his three years of service but this is a results business, and our performances are not good enough, and if we get relegated again this year we will be right back to where we were when he came in.

The storm clouds are back with a vengeance and they may be about to engulf our manager.

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