David Sullivan isn’t making too many friends at West Ham. But defender Jose Fonte isn’t going to get upset by it.
If you’ve been paying attention to the club’s news over the past few weeks it’s not been too pretty. First there was fallout over the sacking, then issues with results, and then David Sullivan decided to give a crazy ‘blame everyone but myself’ interview in which he slammed two players still under contract at West Ham.
Robert Snodgrass, who is on loan at Aston Villa, simply claimed he was not surprised. Given that he was loaned out only 6 months after joining I’m not surprised he doesn’t have a great relationship wit the guys at the top. But it was the mention of Fonte that I found confusing. The Portuguese player has been a consistent performer since the first few games of the season. Why the jab?
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But Fonte, in all his professionalism, has declined to fire back at the co-chairman. In comments reported by Sky Sports, he said:
"“It’s ignorance. I’m not going to say anything. It’s not going to change who I am. It’s not going to change what I do.“I’m going to keep being the good professional that I am. I am going to keep working hard to try and help my team-mates and the manager. What has been said has no effect on me or who I am.”"
Given where the comments came from, it would be easy to start worrying as a player. However when you’re a current European Champion and have played as many games as the Portuguese centreback, he has a bit more armor than most to deal with it.
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The comments show how bad it could have got, if the players had not been as mature. The comments from someone as high up as Sullivan are irresponsible, and potentially damaging. Life is going to get harder for the owners before it gets easier, because of their own decisions. Not giving interviews like this would be a good way to start softening the blows. But full credit to Jose Fonte for being a better man than his boss.