To live in West Ham is to live with sacking rumours, says Avram Grant

Avram Grant has voiced concern that speculation regarding his position as West Ham United's manager is coming from within the club but is clear his focus is on ensuring the team are not relegated. West Ham play Barnsley on Saturday at Upton Park in the FA Cup third round and return to Premier League action against Arsenal a week later. Grant's team lost 5-0 at Newcastle United on Wednesday evening to leave them bottom, though they are only two points worse off than Fulham, who are in 14th place. After the defeat at St James' Park reports suggested Grant might be sacked immediately while others claimed a decision may be made at a board meeting on Wednesday. "To live in this club is to live with the rumours," said Grant. "But now is not the time to deal with this, it is the time to deal with football. It is a matter of what your boss is telling you, not what other people are telling you, and I have a good relationship with the owners [David Gold and David Sullivan] and I don't think they are shy guys to tell me. One of them [was] here today [Gold] and we are only concentrating on how to make the squad stronger. "I discussed the situation as we discussed in the last weeks [about] what we can do to make the team stronger. We need to do it because as I told you before the Fulham game [which West Ham won 3-1 on Boxing Day] 10 players from the 25 were not available. So we are thinking about all of this even if we are aware of the financial situation. It's not an easy situation and I must tell you the owners are trying to do the best for the club in this situation." Asked if he was still the man to lift West Ham to safety in the league the Israeli said: "If not I would not be here. I didn't look for a job before I came here. I had other offers and I looked for a challenge. I came to this challenge and I'm sure that we can deal with this challenge. "If you want to be honest, for myself I think we developed the last two weeks, every game we develop and it's good. When you have a new manager it's more important to see the team develop. Sometimes there are days like what happened to us last time [against Newcastle] but it doesn't happen to us every week – we didn't lose to Wolves when it was a six-point [game]." Steve Sidwell had been due to sign from Aston Villa having taken a medical a fortnight ago. Yet he has joined Fulham and Grant was reluctant to explain why. "You know it was the first time that I spoke before a deal was done," he said. "And I think it was not so good. We wanted Sidwell but we couldn't make it." West Ham have prioritised the recruitment of a left-back and a striker in the transfer window.