West Ham Narrow Manager Shortlist to Four

West Ham United have confirmed that four names remain in the frame to be the club's next manager: Slaven Bilic, Gianfranco Zola, Roberto Donadoni and Michael Laudrup.

The West Ham director Mike Lee said that both Zola and Donadoni had been interviewed by the club and had impressed during the meetings, while Laudrup will meet club officials tomorrow. Lee also made it clear that West Ham would not wait until January for Bilic to become available, though Lee did not rule out allowing Bilic to stay as Croatia coach on a part-time basis for their World Cup qualifying matches in October.

"There's no favorite at the moment, we have set up a proper selection process," Lee said. "We have been surprised and pleased by the number of applications we have had and we are moving towards a short shortlist and ideally to have a manager in place in time for the West Brom match next week.

"Slaven Bilic could potentially be on that shortlist but it depends very much upon his availability. If for whatever reason he was not available until January in terms of working with us I'm afraid that will rule him out."

West Ham are resigned to waiting until after Croatia's match against England on Wednesday before they can speak to Bilic, but would welcome the chance to talk beforehand and have been in discussions with his representatives.

The selection process has already ruled out Gerard Houllier and the former Scotland midfielder John Collins and the former Ajax manager Martin Olsen.