Valon Behrami criticises former West Ham United manager Avram Grant

Valon Behrami criticises former West Ham United manager Avram Grant

Valon Behrami has delivered a scathing verdict on Avram Grant, the former West Ham United manager, and revealed the strength of feeling in the Upton Park dressing room against the sacking of Gianfranco Zola.

Thoughtful: Valon Behrami offers stinging verdict of Grant's reign Photo: ACTION IMAGES

By Jeremy Wilson

10:30PM BST 03 Jun 2011

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The midfielder is expected to start for Switzerland against England at Wembley on Saturday but, up until January, was also part of the West Ham squad who eventually finished bottom of the Premier League.

He traces the decline back to the decision of co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold to change managers.

“They sacked Zola for no reason I think,” said Behrami, who left Upton Park for Fiorentina in January.

“Everybody was with him. We’d had a difficult season but we secured safety two or three games before the end of the season. We felt that that with him as manager we could improve.

“The players were very, very sad when they sacked him and the first day with the new manager was difficult to accept. Everybody was still with Zola.”

Of Grant, Behrami said: “Maybe sometimes a manager has to take charge of a situation in a stronger way.

“Avram was a good person but he left the situation to drift along too easily.

"It was a time when he had to change something. He had to bring something new. But he didn’t give a thing.

“We tried to do a good job but what the players needed was a reaction.

We needed something new and we didn’t feel that we got it. We felt that the situation was the same, going down.”

Behrami spent almost three seasons at West Ham and believes that the new manager, Sam Allardyce, has the strength of personality to galvanise his former team-mates.

However, he does not think that he would have enjoyed the direct style with which Allardyce has become associated.

“I don’t really like it because I like to play like Zola wants to play — every time with the ball, every time try to be attractive as well,” said Behrami.

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