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J.Riddle 6:31 Wed Aug 30
Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

Says a lot of dishonesty and certain things about the club that are not right that he can't talk about. Lack of communication with Bilic.

IF anything sums up the extraordinary existence of the modern day Barclays Premier League footballer it is the strange case of Robert Snodgrass. This gallus Glaswegian’s career appeared to have moved to another level when he agreed a three-and-a-half year deal with ambitious West Ham as the January deadline day approached, the Londoners apparently selecting him to compensate for the departure of the talented but troublesome Dmitri Payet when the Frenchman moved to Marseille and finding £10.2m from down the back of the couch to lure him from Hull City.


After such an investment, you might have thought club and manager Slaven Bilic would be personally invested in the success of the deal. But it didn’t take long for Snodgrass to suspect something wasn’t quite right. Even before he had taken to the field for the first time, as substitute during a 4-0 home defeat to Manchester City, he had an inkling that his dream move was about to become a nightmare.

“I realised from the off that it wasn’t going to happen,” said Snodgrass. “I was coming on against Manchester City and he [Bilic] said ‘where do you want to play, on the left or right?’ I thought ‘You’ve just signed me and I’ve played on the right or behind the striker at Hull City all season’.

“I found it very strange,” he added. “That was my debut. And every time I played I was on the left. Alarm bells were ringing right away. I don’t know why he did it. I came in just as Payet left and maybe it was a case of ‘you can play there’ but I’d only filled in on the left on a couple of times.

“He probably thought he was onto a winner but I hate that position. When you’re Scottish you’re brought up to play anywhere and it’s fine to play for one or two games but you need to play in your right position, especially on the back of scoring nine goals for Hull City. At that stage nobody had scored more goals for Hull, or for West Ham.”

Lines of communication weren’t exactly great. “The manager was under a lot of pressure and I later said that out of respect I didn’t want to go in and see him during that period, “ Snodgrass said. “But when I eventually did speak to him I said I thought he’d have known I wasn’t a left midfielder and that he must have watched me after signing me for that type of money. His answer was basically that when people are confident they can play anywhere.”


Whatever West Ham’s motivation for it all, Snodgrass played 15 matches without scoring last season and may feel he was rather hung out to dry when told he was surplus to requirements this summer. Their loss has been Aston Villa’s gain. He only recently completed the purchase of a house in London and made schooling arrangements for his children, but his day job is now in Birmingham, having agreed a loan deal to hook up with his former Hull City gaffer Steve Bruce at Aston Villa. Things haven’t been plain sailing at the London Stadium in his absence - Bilic’s job is on the line with the club sitting rock bottom after three defeats to date - but that doesn’t mean Snodgrass secretly wishes the club where he is still under contract any ill will.

“I enjoyed every second at West Ham with the lads and the staff,” he said. “It’s a club that is well run but there were certain things behind the scenes that weren’t right. There are certain things that I can’t really say here, but you look at it and you end up getting a lot of stick for something when you came in probably at the wrong time. There was a lot of broken promises, a lot of dishonesty and I thought ‘this is not what I am about’. I want to wear my heart on my sleeve and be loyal. What you see is what you get. If that isn’t the same the other way then I don’t want to be part of it.”


At least Snodgrass doesn’t have all this hanging over him as he reports for Scotland duty, Gordon Strachan having kept faith with him despite a lack of matches so far this season. “I’ve had about one hour at Aston Villa,” he said. “I did my medical, signed some papers and away I went. It was a relief to get it sorted before joining up with the Scotland squad. I asked the manager for some advice and told him I didn’t want to disrupt his plans.

“I’m glad not to be going into a crazy, manic week with things up in the air,” he added. “It’s hard because I just got my kids into school in London and then had to move. It took me four or five months to get the school lined up and then before you know it I’m an Aston Villa player. It’s difficult and that’s the side of things a lot of people don’t see but that’s modern day football.

“My kids are just starting school on Thursday but we’ll work something out. I won’t be travelling down every day - maybe two days in London and five in Birmingham. Football brings changes and different direction in your life. It’s about how you adapt to it and move on.”

Westham67 7:32 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

Read the same in a similar article a week ago, If you've played most of your career on the right being put on the left is a different game. Like putting a good bowler at the top of the batting order and complaining that he's shit

Trevor B 7:52 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

So he's basically saying that he thought he was going to come in and take Antonio's place?

OK Robert.....

stewie griffin 7:56 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

He had lots of playing time on the right.

And he was fucking shit there as well

Stubbo 7:57 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

Whether he thought that he could take Antonio's place is irrelevant. Maybe he thought Antonio would shift over or that he'd play number 10.

The issue here is if the manager didn't know where he played and still signed him, plus this "any player can play anywhere" approach which is leading to discontent and square pegs in round holes.

It's quite a troubling interview

Trevor B 8:03 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

Aren't these the sort of conversations that the player would have prior to signing though? You are about to sign for a club who have an excellent player in your position, so surely you'd want to know if you are going to be unseating him or not? It wouldn't be anything to do with the 65 bags a week that he was offered, now, would it?

The Kronic 8:06 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

Was he a Bilic signing or the midget gimp's?
I suppose it was Slav's fault that his set pieces were shit too.
Whiny beardy cunt.

Westham67 8:11 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

stewie griffin 7:56 Wed Aug 30

I didn't see much of last season for health reasons


I go by what I read on here, therefore, I think he's shit

stewie griffin 8:13 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

Only troubling if you want it to be. It's the sort of stuff that comes out from every failure when they move on.

He's relying on people having short memories. He played on the right LOTS. In fact, bilic was getting pelters off the luminaries on here for playing him ON THE WRONG WING

Doubt they'll appear on this thread.

cholo 8:21 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

Standard stuff a from player thought to have been a failed signing.

Having said that, we've had a lot of failures lately.

terry-h 8:39 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

I've heard Bilic now wants to buy the Aberdeen player that 'fell in a river' last weekend.

Kaiser Zoso 8:42 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

He wasn't shit because of his position on the pitch. He was just shit, and should never have been at the club.

As for all that 'was he a Bilic signing', the same could be said about Bilic. We're not shit because Sullivan chooses all of the players we buy.

Iron2010 8:51 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

For me the only line of interest is where Slav tells him that if you are confident you can play anywhere. A few people have mentioned Slavs idea of fluid "street football" recently and this adds weight to the idea. Unfortunately it is confusing the life out of the players and they clearly need more structure. It baffles me why we are not buying players who are suited to this type of flexibility.

Chrisel 8:58 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

Seems quite a controlled response from Snodgrass. He seems to be biting his tongue about something. Doesn't appear to be just an emotional outburst from a "hard - done by" player that you often see.

In isolation probably doesn't mean much but we are getting variations on a theme from every player that leaves. Of course there are always axes to grind but it does seem to be far more consistent than I remember it being, pretty much from any club not just one West Ham.

Makes me think the set-up isn't right. Not that we can't all see that with our own eyes...

Norflundon 9:08 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

I said this bloke was an absolute fucking donkey when we signed him and every single minute that the bloke confirmed that to me
Dogshit player back where he belongs in the championship
The fact the fella thinks he should be playing No 10 where our best player plays is fucking laughable.....and if any player that plays wide says he can't play on the other side of the pitch shows the pathetic attitude of the bloke
Also smacks of another player Bilic probably didn't want as he's consistently said we need pace and we sign this snail and Arnie who are probably both slower than every single wide player we have at the club

Nagel 9:56 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

He did play on the right for us in more games than he did on the left. Even so, he was completely messed around. In order it went something like this:

RW, LW, CM, CM, LW, RW, RW, LW, LW, RW, RW, CM, RW, LW, RW.

Even if he actually was a versatile player who could play anywhere and not someone who's played the majority of his games on the right wing, how the fuck can you get any cohesion when you're playing a different role practically every week? It's bad for the player and bad for his team-mates.

Pagey 10:18 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

There's probably an element of truth to what he's saying as there are clearly issues at the club.

However, as a professional footballer, he should be able to play pretty much anywhere. Maybe not to the heights that he was at Hull but certainly not to the depths of where he was with us as in not being able to do the basics.

Plus he didn't mention there being any issues at all with his pay packet so thankfully it seems like his massive wage was still going through each month, despite him not doing his job properly for us. That's a bit of a touch for him during his moment of darkness.

Tomshardware 10:22 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

Another to add to the list of players who were decent elsewhere and turn to shit when they sign for us.

threesixty 10:25 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

It's amazing how some on here get all tribal about this. Like he's lying about his experience and he's shit etc... he just scored 9 goals for a shit club in the right sided position yet he's shit? Really?

Why don't we own up to the fact that our manager is shit and has been winging it for over a year and a half now? Why don't we go to the source of the problem instead of airing out our players?

The issue here is that Bilic has "form" for doing this. He did it with Antonio as well. And he did it for ages and when he got questioned about it he got all defensive and shit. He knew he wasn't wrong and dug in. And I am starting to see why he gets himself into problems. He comes across all nice and stuff but in reality he is a stubborn fucker with a little too much pride.

The latest issue now is that having not had a decent senior right back for a year now and how much that position led to his failure , he's gone an got a very experienced right back.

Now he can't play zabelleta in a 3 he is going to insist on a back 4 when all our good results last season came from playing a back 3 which he was forced into playing (due to lack of right back).

So we have stumbled into something that works (quite like when we stumbled into Antonio working for us even as Bilic really didn't like him) and now Bilic, through pride or whatever is going to ignore that so it fits his original vision. Again, stubborn.

And this whole thing about snodgrass playing in antonios position (a player Bilic didn't rate for ages). Why but the guy in the first place if that's what you're going to do? Did he say when he bought him "I'm going to play you anywhere I want and mostly not in your preferred position"? Please sign here...

Would a man move down south, buy a fucking house and get his kid in school if he thought that was the plan? Yes money's good but he could have got similar someone else the next season.

Bilic needs to sort his shit out. I'm sure he'll get a few more games to do this. But I can't see us getting anything out of Huddersfield the way we have been playing unless he does something radical. Long term , I really just want someone new. I personally think that when Bilic is gone snodgrass could still play a role here. He has quality, just doesn't have a decent coach to match.

Willtell 10:27 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

Something is clearly not right at WH. For an international footballer, playing on the left should not be one of them.

Still, we can have him back in time for our Championship campaign next season....

Trevor B 10:28 Wed Aug 30
Re: Snotgrass West Ham nightmare

threesixty

whilst much of what you say has some merit you are forgetting that around half of those goals were dead balls, and for us i don't think he hit the target once from a free kick? the hull team was also set up to get the best out of him as he was by far their best chance of a goal.

history is littered with players who have a purple patch for a shit club and then cannot replicate. i give you matt jarvis.

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