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They've gone down, there's in-fighting at the club's annual dinner and the club are £80m in debt but a long list of men are lined up for the manager role at Upton Park.

Chris Hughton heads the list of West Ham suitors in the early trading on Betfair's next manager market.

The former Newcastle boss, so harshly sacked in mid-season by Mike Ashley, is the 3.0 favourite to take the reins at Upton Park following Avram Grant's Sunday afternoon sacking in the DW Stadium tunnel.

In volatile trading, Hughton has been backed at a low of 2.12 from an early high of 6.2 before settling at his current level. Possessing promotion winning experience at Championship level with a thin Newcastle United squad in 2009-10, and not currently employed in football, Hughton looks ideally placed to take charge.

But what of his rivals in the market?

A clutch of men are clustered around the 9.0 mark with Sam Allardyce, Neil Warnock and Malky Mackay all attracting early money. Whether Allardyce would be willing to manage in The Championship is debatable and it's hard to envisage Warnock passing up the opportunity of another season in the Premier League. Meanwhile, would the Boelyn Ground faithful be satisfied with Mackay? Would West Ham want to pay compensation to Watford for poaching him?

No-one else trades in single figures with ex-West Brom manager Roberto di Matteo, another with promotion winning experience at Championship level, available to back at 14.0; Martin O'Neill, courted by the Hammers in the summer, at 15.0; and current Cardiff manager Dave Jones trading at 19.0.

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