Chickens in the Barnsley?

Barnsley! Well, last year the CC-team won 1-2 away against Liverpool and in the Quarter Finals they even made the only goal (Odejayi) against Chelsea and went on to the Semi. So Barnsley know how to chock their PL-opponents in the FA-cup. Still I will go for a win for West Ham when we meet in the third round. Barnsley look a bit weaker this year. They even fell to Nottingham this weekend. But who knows? West Ham have a bad habit to loose to worse teams. To play too cowardly. The Tykes are certainly no easy opposition in this cup.

Youngsters shine!

All of a sudden we have half a team out on loan.

And the latest to leave West Ham temporarily was Junior Stanislas. Who showed what a talent we have there. He scored the two first goals when Southend won 3-1 in the FAcup against Luton.

Jordan Spence was also at the winning side with his new team Leyton Orient, and Kyel Reid set up a winning goal for Blackpool when they surprisingly won away against Plymouth.

The only of our young players who lost was James Tomkins who saw his Derby lose with 3-0 against the tough CC-side Burnley.

N'gala had a weekend off and Josh Payne just played a few minutes for Cheltenham.

At least we don't have Chris De Burgh!

Today Timesonline wrote an article on the 50 worst famous football fans.

Even if we found ourselves having the second worst fan (Russell_Brand), at least we didn't have Usama Bin Laden (Arsenal), Adolf Hitler (Schalke 04) or Chris De Burgh (Liverpool)!

Out of Court Settlement - Yes Please!

The Daily Mail yesterday reported that an out of court settlement with Sheffield could be in the making.


I've been waiting for that story to emerge for some time since it makes perfect sense that both parties, at this time, would like to have this settled and to stop the uncertainty.
There is no doubt in my mind that talks like these are ongoing, but to keep the pressure on the other team and to cover for a "no deal scenario" the other, official, routes must be proceeded.

Here are some reasons for Sheffield to go for an out of court settlement:

1. West Ham will drag this "case" to every legal body thinkable and then some, we've shown our determination to do so already. The new Tribunals verdict (the amount to be payed) will of course also be appealed against to all instances, dragging this painful story into and maybe beyond the summer transfer window. If Sheffield are promoted, money would be a great boost for their bid to stay in the premiership. A decent sum now may also enable them to bolster their squad already in the January transfer window, increasing the chances of a promotion.

2. There is still an outside chance that this can be taken to CAS and that possibility may persuade Sheffield to accept a lower "payoff", instead of risking it all.

3. There is the chance/risk that the new Tribunal will come up with a very low sum for West Ham to pay, and that may also be a reason for Sheffield to settle for something less than their original bid, just to secure as much as possible. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.


A knee jerk reflex would be to say that "we owe those **** nothing so we should pay them nothing"! But let's look at some reasons for West Ham to take a lesser blow now:

1. The uncertainty of this issue is most likely a big stumbling block for the sale of the club. Any potential buyer would like this sorted before agreeing on a takeover price, and I want this club sold as much as BG does!

2. A potential payoff would be reflected in the price of the Club, so the money is gone for BG any way you see it. To let this affect the takeover now, for a profit in the summer when he is not around is just not in his interest.

3. In analogy to the Sheffield point number 2 and 3 above, there is good a chance that CAS will never handle this and that the Tribunal will come to the conclusion that the absurd £50 m claim is justified. I mean this bunch have come to some mind boggling conclusions already, do we really want this in their hands?

4. To drag this around the legal system costs us money! If this would drag on until the summer, the fees for Maurice and his lot will not be counted in thousands...

5. The players need to be reassured that there is a financially viable future at the club, otherwise those we would like to stay may start to jump ship at first chance.

But what is the amount that is the highest amount West Ham would find agreeable, and what is the lowest Sheffield would consider?

Let's hope they overlap!

Professional athletes?

Last week there was an incident of the kind that really makes my blood boil. These incidents happens from time to time and I ask myself, every single time, why? I´m talking about the ”arrest” of James Collins outside a night club at 3 am in the middle of the week. Sure, this one was a mistake, he hadn´t done anything wrong, he had only been to a restaurant with his wife. The police let him go on the spot after they found out about their mistake. I´m happy that it was a mistake but I´m not particulary pleased that he was at the scene in the first place (at that time, 3am, in the middle of the week, during season).

This isn´t the first time we hear about players going out during the season getting into trouble. That makes me think that it´s probably quite common (they can´t end up in trouble every single time, can they?). Why? Why don´t the take their carreers seriously enough to sacrifice such things during the season during their relatively short carreers? Why don´t they do everything in their power to become as good as possible like so many other athletes would have done (at least in individual sports).

James Collins might not have been drunk and he might have been in the neighbourhood with his wife just to grab a nice meal but at 3 o´clock in the morning?

I´d really like to see a change in mentality of the pro footballers. A couple of years ago, when David James played in West Ham, he was asked if he´d done anything to improve since they´ve seen him raise his standards the last couple of games. He told them that he´d been of the "boose" since New Years Eve or something like that. He did it to enhance his game and be a better goalkeeper. I think it was before the world cup. How come he didn´t realise this sooner in his carreer (and why didn´t he continue? He might have, I don´t know).

I guess this has something to do with individual sports vs team sports. In a team sport you get away with it when you in individual sports don´t. When there´s 11 players on the pitch you can get away with a lesser performance. When only you are in focus you won´t. Why don´t they make the best of the great opportunity they´ve received by being good in a huge sport like football?

I hope Zola took the opportunity to talk about principles and morale and how to behave like an elite athlete when he got this golden opportunity. If so, then something good might come from it. I don´t want to read about incidents like this every other month. I just want the players in ”my” team to behave like professional athletes in the future. Is that to much to ask?

Joppe the Grouch - Othello style?

When reading newspaper articles and blog entries one often finds that it's just a new take on something already written, and I don't mean the generic articles based on news agency material.

Quite often I find that the first time I read it was on the lading West Ham site/forum - KUMB.

This could mean that the posters on KUMB gets information soon to be unveiled in other media on before hand, or it could be that the so called authors of these newspaper articles have found an easy way to get information. KUMB is never more than a click away. A coming Bubbleview post on potential buyers will be one good example.

I think we can agree that most people that are really interested in what people say about West Ham, would check out KUMB.

Do you think that the group at West Ham responsible for the information flow to the press and the fans are interested in what people say about West Ham, and do you think that they are any different than other interested parties? I thought not.
Ergo, West Ham press people are looking to KUMB, as one source, to find out what is going on out there and to check which rumors are flying - and which are not!

Now let's take this argumentation one step further. If you were to do a multi million pound business, would you not only know but even like to influence what is said?

OK, how would you do that?
You could post a statement by Duxbury on the official site (or let him send an e-mail to all employees...) or you could send out a spokesperson to talk to the press). These ways have the drawbacks of all official statements- we know this is only what the Club or owner wants us to know.
Another common "trick" is to drop some information on the doorstep of a "trusted" journo that usually writes a piece on what you throw at him - it serves a purpose for both parties.

Yet another way would be to feed someone at strategical places, maybe someone considered to be ITK . However, a more direct way would be to actually plant a story by posting a hint at the appropriate forum. Are they that shrewd or am I just paranoid?

Can you really be sure I'm just paranoid?

19 + 5 = Many, many goals!

West Ham continue to plan for the future. I hope. At least giving another of our players a new improved five year contract make us all believe so. And happily it's Freddie Sears that now is ready to bang goals for us until 2013. (Well, he has only scored once in the PL so far, in his debut last March, but anyway... we all know he will be PL:s top scorer 2011 ) 

He signs the deal one day before his 19th Birthday. Which is the 27th of November.

So Congratulations Freddie!

Does this appeal to you?

We have now appealed to the High Court over the High Court decision to grant the injunction of an appeal to CAS on the Arbitration Panel ruling that favor the Sheffield appeal over the Tevez soap - or something.

Still with me? No? Study previous blog entries HERE

This means (I think) that the High Court will now decide the future of this injunction/CAS appeal, come January. So there will be no CAS-case until then (if ever).

My first reaction was to wonder if it was in our best interest to keep the uncertainty about this alive. But since the new_"Tribunal+" will not come up with their verdict on how much, if anything, West Ham is to throw at Sheffield, until March, it really doesn’t change anything.

At least the legal team led by Maurice_Watkins gets to play another day.

Three young guns

We do have three youngsters out on loan now, that we all hope can be a part of our first eleven in a couple of years. Josh Payne in Cheltenham, Bondz N'Gala in MK Dons and from now and a month, the more than promising Jordan Spence in Leyton Orient. In the meantime our reserve team will suffer... (Or what do Tristan say?)

Check out the presentations of Josh and Jordan by clicking their names or by clicking the "One for the future" label to the left of the posts.

Italian U-21 international wants loan deal = West Ham the obvious destination?

Sebastian Giovinco, 21 year old Italian U-21 international, currently at Juventus, is said to want to go on loan to get some more playing time.
This obviously alerts the press (and some blogs), and as he has played for Zola in the Italian U-21s, and said to rate Zolas advice as “invaluable”, the connection to West Ham is inevitable.

Being an attacking midfielder he plays in a position where we are in a close to desperate need, which obviously fuels the rumors further.
Another fact that may make this rumor more believable than others, is the loan del concept. We will not buy a player this January that can significantly bolster our squad, but to get one on loan may be a possibility.
This may be especially reasonable if we are about to dislodge some of the midfielders during the coming transfer window, and I fear we might.

Not being much of a fan of Italian football I must say I have no first hand information about his abilities, and it may be a hard time to find games to gamble on an unproven player, but if Zola says he is OK I won’t argue.

Cole secured for half a decade!

Cole signed a new contract yesterday (wearing a watch that indicated that it was about time, and also that he is making decent money).

I am torn when it comes to Cole, as the faithful reader may have noticed, but this is nevertheless good news, se previous post on this topic.

Quashie extending his stay at St Andrews is another piece of good news!

Saved by incompetence

93 minutes of frustration yesterday!

First I must join the chorus of appraisals for Collins and Upson (and Neill!) but apart from that, what sticks in my mind is that there are at least 2 fundamental problems with the game we played yesterday.

First : The midfield lacks a passer that possess the ability to play the ball to someone that is not already covered.
Parker receives the ball and mostly dwells on it until the enemy midfielder is all over him and he needs to just “get rid of it”, resulting in a 5 yard pass. The poor fellow on the other end of that pass is then, for obvious reasons, not more than a couple of yards away from quite a few enemies, in addition to the one marking him, giving him no time.
For a couple of games I was blaming our 3 man midfield for not being able to get some width in the play. I still think that was one reason, but the lack of ability to open the game is apparent also in a 442 setting.
It was even more obvious yesterday since as soon as Sunderland gained possession they immediately played it away from that central congested area which allowed them to get possession of the ball in our half of the pitch. Thankfully they failed to convert it into anything useful…
This problem is of course intertwined with lack of passing opportunities presented by his team mates, but still.

Second: I wrote in a recent post that most defenders and midfielders know how to strip the ball from Cole. Apart from the fact that they really didn’t have to do that yesterday, since he lost it more or less on his own most of the time, it turned out to be true again.
Cole is over-used in these games. It seems like that the first thought of many players is “feed the Cole” but unfortunately he will not score, or deliver the ball to someone in motion, or keep it up long enough to let the team advance.
Bellamy was more or less invisible yesterday, and even though all players have to answer for their own shortcomings, he was not given much to work with. How many balls delivered behind the back 4 for him to chase did you see? I cannot remember more than one!

No, the presence of a below par target player ruins our and Bellamy’s game. If Sunderland had been any better in front of goal or if Collins/Upson had not been brilliant, this would have been called the catastrophe it was. We were saved by their incompetence.

Our seven sins are erased!

For a few hours Tottenham was ahead of us in the table after a scrappy win against Blackburn. Our win was not the prettiest either, but to sooo much relief. It's like Zola said, football is a strange game, sometimes you play beautiful and come out with nothing... So I guess we have all learned that fighting is always number one, playing pretty football number two... Even if we wan't everything - always including three points. But this win was really great as we are still better off than Tottscum, and that this win with another cleen sheet make us feel so much better. Not at least as our forthcoming games will be tougher than tough.

Zola gave us some surprising changes in the team today, the only one I disliked was that Collison was out of the team and Bowyer in...

Green 6. Even if Sunderland created a lot of offensive play (mostly with Andy Reid involved) Green was actually never really tested. Did what he had to do.

Neill 6.5. Our back four were great today, although our captain the least impressive, had some hard times against Reid. But also some good clearings.

Collins 8. My man of the game. Did anyone count how many headers he won? Kept Jones, which is not so easy, quiet. Took down Cissé once which could have been a penalty or rather a free-kick, but did it so "smart" that the referee waved play on.

Upson 8. Also solid as a rock. Seemed only to benefit from his outing in the national team in midweek. Cissé did not confront him so much, and neither did anyone else.

Illunga 7. Great work, played cool and did again no mistakes. Should be able to offer even more in the offensive play sometimes, as we've seen that before. But relly good defensivly. You can't do anything but like Yo-yo!

Faubert 6. Better in his defensive work today than when we've seen him as a RB lately. So he had a decent game, not at least as he was the man behind the attack that led to our goal. But can't understand his slow play sometimes. He must be much quicker.

Bowyer 5. Not a great game. Like when he runs into the box, did some nice passes too, but can't offer anything that differs anymore.

Parker 7. Solid. Did stop a lot of counterattacks. But failed to create any offensive pressure. Well, maybe that's not mainly his work to do...

Behrami 7.5. Love to see his working-rate. How he really runes like a Duracell rabbit and annoys the opposition. Don't understand how he could miss when he was totally free, but what the heck, he scored the winner anyway! His first goal in the PL.

Cole 6.5. Won nearly as many headers as James Collins (slightly exaggerated), but failed to make them into sharp opportunites. Mainly because Bellamy was hard to find, and noone else was there, but also lacked the skill from time to time. The referee always seems to act against our strong man. Worked hard, but can't remember him having any chances in the game at all.

Bellamy 6. When totally free with the keeper Bellamy should have done much better. Not one of his better games for us, but keeps on running all the time. Subbed late in the game (perhaps cause he started to argue with the referee a bit too much)

Subs:

Mullins - replaced Bowyer and did ok.

Boa Morte - late sub for Faubert. Did ok.

Di Michele - was not able to see him or the last three minutes of the game as my recorder stopped to record (which of course made be angry, nervous, irritated and.... x%€##& ) just as he was to be on.

Nonused subs: Lastuvka, Davenport, Collison, Sears.

Both Alan's without work!

So it's closing time.... not for us, but for our former manager Alan Pardew, who tonight was sacked from Charlton, a team without a win in eight games. So may our old Charlton man Curbs make a come back in the Championship team? Nah, don't think so. The team is in a mess, and may be one of the biggest contenders for a place in next years league one - no matter who will be their new manager. 

Alan Pardew had a good spell with West Ham. To start with. And we will thank him for that. But before he got sacked by our Islandic board he had lost the dressing room, had - according to rumours - been a little too close to a wife of a player. But for me his biggest mistake was - handcuffed or not - to play Mullins instead of Mascherano. A mistake the new Alan continued.

Anyway good luck to both of our former managers, they do both have to find a new job now. 

Keep your Cole!

There is a rumour that Carlton Cole is about to sign a new (and improved) 4 year deal and it got me all wound up so I just couldn’t wait for it to be confirmed or denied.

This is a HUGE boost for me as a supporter, but maybe not for the reasons you think.

This is the first sign of planning for the future we’ve seen since the signing of Behrami, or at least since the financial circus started!
Zola and the board have repeatedly said that Zola is not forced to sell during the transfer window (unless to finance another player) but there have been a lot of sweet words from board members and in official statements that have been less than trustworthy, so this proof of putting money where their mouth is is very welcome (remember, IF TRUE)!.

Cole is one of the “sellables”. We could probably make some money on his departure if we were in desperate need. So this is not just about Cole, it indicates that the dreaded exodus is as unfounded as I thought/hoped it was.

I’ve said before that it wouldn’t make sense to sell the players necessary to stay up, since this would make the price of the club shrink to pre-Brown levels, and that must be our owner, BG’s, worst nightmare.

But, again, this is the first sign that the board is actually doing what they have promised to do and I feel a slight hope for the future bud inside me.
EDIT: According to the official home page its a 5 year deal but not yet signed.