West Ham target David Moyes after sacking Slaven Bilic

West Ham have sacked Slaven Bilic following the club’s dismal start to the Premier League season with David Moyes emerging as the clear favourite to replace him as manager.

The West Ham board acted swiftly to remove Bilic following the 4-1 home defeat to Liverpool on Saturday which left the club in the relegation zone with just nine points from 11 games.

A joint statement from co-chairmen David Gold and David Sullivan read: “During the summer, the board invested heavily signing the players Slaven believed would complete the squad he needed to push the club back towards the level we had reached in his first season.

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“We have not seen enough indication of the required improvement to give us the encouragement that things would change and we would meet our Premier League aspirations this season.

“We believe a change is now necessary to ensure we can begin to move the team back in the right direction. We see this as an exciting opportunity to appoint a quality manager to the position to inject fresh ideas, organisation and enthusiasm into a very talented squad.”

Bilic guided West Ham to seventh in his first season in charge and 11th last term but looked resigned to his fate following a third home defeat in four against Liverpool at the weekend.

Nikola Jurcevic, Edin Terzic, Julian Dicks and Miljenko Rak have been placed in temporary charge of first team affairs but the Hammers are confident of installing a new manager ahead of their next Premier League game at Watford on Sunday 19 November.

The Times reports that Moyes is the front-runner with speculation the former Everton boss will agree an initial six-month deal within the next 48 hours.

“The West Ham owners admire Moyes’s achievements at Everton and wanted to talk to him before they appointed Bilic in June 2015, but the Scot did not want to leave Real Sociedad.

“West Ham have been concerned that they would have to make a change for some time and considered various managers in the autumn. Thomas Tuchel and Julian Nagelsmann, the rising star of German football, rebuffed interest and there was a conversation with Ronald Koeman after he was sacked by Everton. Other names in the frame include David Wagner, Eddie Howe, Sean Dyche and Roberto Mancini, the Italian who is keen on a return to the Premier League.”

Moyes is out of work after finishing bottom of the Premier League with Sunderland last season and has made it clear he would be interested in another opportunity to work in the English top flight.

When asked about the possibility of taking over at West Ham prior to Bilic’s departure on BeIN Sports yesterday, he said: “I’m interested, yes, but at the moment it’s not available. I’ve always said I want to go back into club management. If the right opportunity comes around, I’ll be interested.”