After West Ham United's dismal performance in the Premiership this season, the club’s new management decided to ditch Alan Pardew and replace him with Alan Curbishley - the man responsible for turning Charlton Athletic into a team to be reckoned with in the big league.

When I learned about Pardew's sacking, what came to mind immediately was the fact that West Ham are one of six Premiership clubs under foreign ownership (the others being Manchester United, Chelsea, Portsmouth, Fulham and Aston Villa). Icelandic boss Eggert Magnusson and chief financier Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson were both present when the Hammers lost to Bolton, and they called the shots that led to the Pardew's sacking. Obviously, the big bosses were unhappy with the team’s performance against Sam Allardyce’s men and how they had slid into the bottom three.

While people may think that foreign ownership of football clubs leads to further degradation of the integrity of the sport (making it into nothing but a profit-driven machine), what we've seen so far is an increasing pressure on managers to stop sitting pretty and start delivering results. And that trend may not hurt the sport at all. When you look at the Premiership's leading competitors, you have two foreign-owned teams (United and Chelsea) whose managers are liable to bosses who are concerned in keeping their teams on top; after all, a lousy team will not make any money.

The bosses aren't to blame for asking for skill, competitiveness and victories from their managers. Buy-outs are not at all cheap. West Ham United, for example, was acquired at a cost of £85 million. The new owners want a profitable team, and a profitable team is one that does well on the pitch. To do well, this team must be led by an effective manager and filled with players he can inspire to do well and realise their full potential. Players of this ilk go to clubs they believe can hone their talent - and managers like Arsene Wenger, who know how to nurture talent. At the end of the day, I doubt this would be a bad thing for English football.

With word of a Dubai-based buyout of Liverpool, this issue is not something we can take too lightly.

Meanwhile, the only consolation to the Hammers is the fact that their players won't have any trouble re-learning their manager's name mid-season. They're going from one Alan to another.