Zola: Signed Benni McCarthy

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Sullivan to hire English only?

West Ham co-owner David Sullivan says he will be reluctant to hire non-English managers in future after some high profile failures.

Sullivan admits that the Hammers were lucky to avoid relegation under Gianfranco Zola, who was sacked in May 2010.

The Italian’s successor, Avram Grant, fared no better. The Israeli was shown the exit door a day after West Ham were relegated following a 3-2 defeat at Wigan.

Sullivan was also concerned by Zola’s judgement in the transfer market. Apparently, Zola is the one who pushed hard for the Benni McCarthy deal.

Sullivan told www.westhamtillidie.com:  “Seriously, he (Zola) said “You get me Benni McCarthy and I will keep you up.” He would have loved a more expensive player, but if we had two or three million to spend he said get McCarthy and he’ll keep us up.

“Well, he should have taken one look at him when he arrived and saw that he was two stone overweight and not signed him.

“Benni McCarthy probably cost us four or five million quid. We had to pay him off. We wrote off a £2 1/4 million transfer fee. And I thought, well if that’s his judgement on transfers, I’m seriously worried. If you include the transfer fee, wages, NI, payoff, agents’ fees and everything, McCarthy cost us £7 million!”

Asked whether he should have given Zola more time before sacking him, Sullivan answered: “But yes, half of me says, yes, we should have given him more time, but really, we should have been relegated under him because 34 or 35 points doesn’t keep you up most seasons.

“It was a bad year with Portsmouth, Burnley and I can’t remember the other one. There were some bad teams in that division who shouldn’t have been in the Premier League. We stayed up by default really.

“Against that, he didn’t have much ammunition. He had to sell his side. It’s also very difficult when people aren’t fluent in English, but then we picked another one [Avram Grant] who also wasn’t fluent in English.

“I really do like English managers and I really don’t think I would ever appoint a non English manager ever again. I find Scottish people hard enough to understand to be honest! I keep having to ask Alex [McLeish] to slow down a bit. I can’t follow what you’re saying!”