• Matches against Tottenham and Liverpool key to whether Croat will stay in job • West Ham have been outplayed by the top clubs at home so far this season

Slaven Bilic’s future at West Ham United will be determined by how his team performs against Tottenham Hotspur on Friday night and Liverpool on Sunday week in the final two home matches of the season.

The club’s hierarchy has watched Bilic’s team labour at the London Stadium since the move there last August and they are conscious of how routinely they have been out-played by the leading sides. Manchester City took them apart in both the Premier League and the FA Cup, as did Arsenal in the league, while Manchester United and Chelsea have also beaten them in the league.

Harry Kane urges Tottenham to give Chelsea a Friday fright by closing the gap Read more

The Tottenham game is pivotal and Bilic could re-energise his tenure and be able to look towards the summer with optimism if he could oversee a good result against the club that West Ham fans most love to hate. Those supporters would love to end Tottenham’s title hopes and, if they did, it would go a long way towards ending a disappointing season on an upbeat note.

On the other hand, another bad home defeat would put Bilic’s position in jeopardy. The board of directors will review whether to persist with him at the end of the season and it is difficult to overstate how sorely he needs some positivity against Tottenham and Liverpool, with the former the most important game because of the local rivalry.

West Ham finish the season at Burnley. They have restored a measure of stability in recent weeks with a run of four matches without defeat, having lost five in a row previously and they look to have done enough to stay on the right side of the relegation cut-off. But if results were to go against them, they might need one more win to make sure.

The club’s various settling-in problems at the London Stadium have been well-documented but arguably the biggest issue to bog them down has been the lack of spark in their displays.

Rémi Garde: ‘I am sad to read the criticism of Wenger and the bad words’ Read more

Bilic’s team beat Chelsea 2-1 in the EFL Cup last October – on a night when crowd trouble led to unwanted headlines – and there was the 3-0 win over Crystal Palace in January, when Andy Carroll scored one of the goals of the season. Those games apart, the pickings have been slim and the picture has not been much better away from home.

There is an acceptance within the hierarchy that the club’s recruitment last summer left plenty to be desired and Bilic cannot be blamed for all of it. Of the 10 new faces to arrive, it is hard to say whether any of them have been out-and-out successes. Edimilson Fernandes has done well, at times, while Havard Nordtveit and Arthur Masuaku have shown flickers of late.

But Bilic made it plain that he wanted Gokhan Tore above anybody else and the loan signing from Besiktas has started only three league games. His decision to rely upon Michail Antonio as a right-back at the start of the season was also flawed and it left the team short in the position.

Bilic has – by and large – been able to retain the support of the fans and this has helped him during the season’s low points. He urgently needs to give them something to shout about at the end.