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Sullivan refutes insult claims

David Sullivan is concerned by West Ham's current form © Getty Images

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David Sullivan has denied calling West Ham's players "fat, lazy and useless", following newspaper reports on Saturday morning, but does believe that they played no better than a mid-table Championship side against Wolves.

Sullivan has insisted it is an attempt to motivate them ahead of the vital game with Stoke at Upton Park. He also told the players when he addressed them at the training ground on Thursday that "Stoke were a tough big side", but he expected better from them on Saturday.

It was claimed on Saturday morning that Sullivan had caused unrest with some fiery comments, which prompted Gianfranco Zola's assistant to throw him out, but he has spoken to Soccernet in a bid to clear the air.

Sullivan, speaking for the first time about Thursday's training ground incident, said: "Both Clarke and Zola knew I was going to training ground as I informed them the day before. When I got there they were about to start a meeting with the players, I was asked if I wanted to address the players. I did address them and said we had to do better Saturday than Tuesday.

"At no point did I say anybody was fat, lazy or useless. Not a single player said a word to me, apart from [Luis] Boa Morte who said he thought it was better that I said things to players' faces, which presumably I was doing at that moment in time, rather than through the media.

"At no time did the squad exchange insults with me, nor did the preparation for today's match descend into chaos as there was a normal full training session.

"Clarke asked me to leave saying they wanted to speak to the players privately."

Sullivan has no idea what was then said between Zola, Clarke and the players, but felt Clarke was wrong to ask him to leave.

"After the meeting I spoke to Clarke privately as I thought it was wrong that he'd asked me to leave the meeting publicly," Sullivan said. "You can imagine if Roman Abramovich had been asked to leave a similar meeting at Chelsea..."

Sullivan and Clarke had a confrontational and frank exchange of words, but Sullivan thought it was in private, although he was on the phone to Karren Brady, the club's vice-chairman, at the time, so she heard the exchange.

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