West Ham's owners hope to appoint a "quality manager" to "inject fresh ideas" amid speculation Davis Moyes will replace the departed Slaven Bilic.
Bilic was sacked by the Hammers on Monday after another hugely disappointing weekend in the Premier League, West Ham thrashed 4-1 at home by Liverpool on Saturday.
It was the final straw for Bilic, who was relieved of his duties having failed to kick on this season despite investment over close season.
Joint owners David Sullivan and David Gold released a statement stating they had fired club-favourite Bilic with "heavy hearts", but they were left with no option after the Croatian failed to achieve the standards expected by the club.
They now turn their attention to appointing a successor with former Sunderland boss Moyes the heavily-backed frontrunner.
1.33 - Slaven Bilic had the best points-per-game ratio of any permanent West Ham manager in the . Undeserved? November 6, 2017
"As custodians of the football club it is our responsibility as a board to do what is best for West Ham United, and we believe a change is now necessary to ensure we can begin to move the team back in the right direction," their statement read.
"We see this as an exciting opportunity to appoint a quality manager to the position to inject fresh ideas, organisation and enthusiasm into a very talented squad.
"We would like to thank Slaven for his efforts and wish him all the very best in his future endeavours. He will always be welcome at London Stadium, as a former player and manager who always gave everything for the club.
"We will now focus our entire efforts on bringing in the manager we believe can get the best out of the current squad of players and steer the club towards the top half of the table as quickly as possible."
Bilic was followed out of West Ham by all of his coaching staff bar one – Chris Woods – who worked with Moyes at Everton.
