OLAS 445 26 October 2008
How perfect would it have been to go into today’s game on the back of two winning performances? We arrive, instead, having suffered two successive defeats to average teams. Never mind, we are ready for Arsenal anyway. Arsenal’s defence is not as anally retentive as it once was and, in recent years we have enjoyed enough good results against them, home and away, to know that we can beat them. Pardew demonstrated for everyone the method to employ if you want to make Whinger lose his cool. Gianfranco is probably too much of a gent to use those tactics but he will know that the performances he can bring out of the players against the likes of the Arse and Manure the following week will be a barometer of how well he has stepped up to the demands of the premiership. Lots of teams treat points at the expense of the giants as bonus points. Bonus, shmonus – I’m confident we will get some.
Bad as the result was against Bolton, it was essentially down to two uncharacteristic and unforced errors by Rob Green, who is a consistently high performer. He won’t make errors like those again for many a moon. It was predictable that, after scoring early in each of our first three home games, a tough-minded team would come to Upton Park primarily to defend and keep as many players playing deep. Bolton did precisely that. For the first 25 minutes, though, we used crisp, short passes and purposeful one touch football attempting to drive a path through them. They restricted us mainly to shooting from a distance but some of these efforts were only just off target with the goalie beaten. I’ve no doubt that if we had scored first we would have gone on to win. Bolton would have been forced to chase the game and we would have found further opportunities.
As it is, their double strike in quick succession rocked us and the players were visibly disorientated. It was the kind of scenario that Steve Clarke ought to prepare the team for overcoming and I am sure, over time, he will. Zola made the right moves to try to retrieve the game – risking a three-man defence that only came unstuck right at the end. With more bite in the final third we would have got some reward from the game, even if some players (Etherington, Fuabert) were playing below par.
We didn’t succeed, but the game never felt beyond us until that storming third goal. And that strong sense that even when we were losing we could turn it around reminded me of our first season back with Pardew. Pards has his own problems these days at Charlton but his positivity and never-say-die attitude in 2005-6, and his desire that West Ham should play true to their traditions, has a new lease of life under Gianfranco and I am sure he will be pleased about that.
Curbishleyism is gone, the wasted passes across the field followed by the long hoof forward are gone and real football has returned. If our finishing was not so woeful at Hull we would have ran out easy winners. Bellamy and Cole need to sharpen up in front of goal. Certainly, if we are to get something from the game today and next week at Old Trafford, it can only be by playing real football and taking the few chances we will get.
Full credit to Hull, though, for riding their luck against us and winning so many points at this stage of their first premiership season. Good to see their fellow promoted club, Stoke, notch up a win at the weekend, too, though I can’t remember who it was that they beat. Oh yeah, now I remember!!! The only thing amazes me about Spurs this season is how they managed to get even two points.
It is such a warm and proud feeling to beat any premiership rival but it is especially fulfilling to beat the Arse. Undoubtedly, part of it is seeing Whinger shuffle around nervously like Mr Bean and then listening to him come out with his excuses scraped from the bottom of the barrel. He is Mr Bad Loser Number 1. And, to be honest, I can’t get away from my very first impression of him when I thought he looked like a cold-blooded Nazi bureaucrat – not the individual that personally commits mass murder, but the one who records it and checks that everything is in order and running smoothly.
We know from experience that everyone of us collectively – the crowd at Upton Park – can totally get underneath his skin and that of his players. So you know what is demanded of you today.
Blimey, that’s eight paragraphs and I’m still talking about the football on the pitch while the real story is, of course, the financial crash that is threatening the future of many clubs, not least ours. My friend Paul, for sins in a past life, I suspect, a Blackpool fan, reckons that West Ham would be better off purchasing their personnel from Iceland Supermarket than Iceland the country. He’s got a point. They offer family meals for £5 – so their football players and chairmen surely can’t cost that much more.
Of course the global financial crisis is not (that) funny, but I had to chuckle when I heard a newsreader say that, “Icelandic assets might be frozen”. I stated to imagine how painfully boring it would be to be a weatherman/woman on Icelandic TV: “Gott kvolld. A morgun vilja vera kuldi” - “Good evening: tomorrow will be cold (and the day after, and the day after, and the day after, and…) Á nótt það vilja vera frjósa. (At night it will be freezing!)”
No kidding. Still the word on the street is that our Mr Landsbanki will feel the pressure to cash in on his assets while he still can. And that is why we need to prepare ourselves for the name change.
I was chatting to my friend Ivor about an article I had read speculating that the financial crisis would force our Icelandic owner to sell and that a company from Abu Dhabi would be bidding to buy West Ham. For most of its existence West ham has typified the football club where one paternalistic local family business has remained in control, and players gave service to one club. These days it’s not just players but clubs too that are seen as short-tem disposable assets. Anyway, I said to Ivor that I thought, “this Abu Dhabi business wouldn’t be terribly keen on the ‘Ham’ in our name so we may have to become West Kebab.” I was only just stating to get used to our new name when Ivor said: “That will be East Kebab then – no, hang on, Middle-East Kebab!”.
So there we have it. A month from now, instead of West Ham United we could be “Middle East Kebab” – singing our new theme tune: “I’m forever roasting shwarma, gritty shwarma on a spit, it roasts so red, keeps us all well-fed, but my mate prefers felafel instead. Fortunes always hiding etc.” Okay it hasn’t got the pathos and underlying theme of proletarian resignation that “Bubbles” possesses, and it will take time to get used to it, but I’m sure we’ll adjust. We always do.
Anyway, dress warmly, make sure your assets don’t get frozen, keep up the pressure on Whinger and his team, and enjoy the game! COYI!!!
Monday, 27 October 2008
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
THE SECRET IS OUT
OLAS 444 Sunday 5th October
It’s a closely guarded secret but I can reveal that our next sponsors are going to be “Debtsure” – the UK debt solutions specialists whose catchy slogan is “we can clear 70% of your debts”. They have won the contract just ahead of the Consumer Credit Counselling Service – “a registered charity offering free confidential advice and support to anyone who is worried about debt”, who themselves just about pipped Scott Duxbury’s first choice – Lehman Brothers – that right bunch of bankers. So, all you Hammers can look forward to ordering your shirts again without the discredited XL which has flown into the ground. Now we will have the words “Debtsure; Paying off those bastards in Sheffield very slowly”, proudly emblazoned on our chests and pie-filled tummies.
There was never any doubt that the dodgy South American deal was going to come back and bite us on the arse and the rumours are it could cost us £30million or more, though I suspect the actual amount will be smaller. One of the problems about it is that we won’t know for a while. It is unlikely to be confirmed until well into the new year, and unless we also imported large quantities of drugs from South America at the same time or there is a pot of gold that one of our directors has been keeping for such a rainy day, it certainly puts paid to any interesting forays into the transfer market in January. The best that we can hope for there is to pick up inflated prices for some of our dummies and to get a couple more loan players. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. Di Michele and Ilunga are settling in well and making their mark.
When it comes to assessing the merits of the compensation claim, there is no doubt that the whiff of hypocrisy is all around, What is so different about the arrangements that Man U or Liverpool have made with Honest Kia Joorabchian for Tevez and Mascherano? Who owns the players now? And why were Sheffield United so quiet when we were languishing in bottom place for so long that awful season? Now, I might be a bit mutton, but was there even a teeny-weeny peep out of them when they thumped us 3-0 in April 2007 with Tevez playing, and barely a few matches left? Sheffield United went down not because of Tevez but because they were crap. They may deserve pity for being crap, but nobody deserves compensation for being crap.
If West Ham don’t succeed in getting this judgement overturned in a higher court, if such a challenge is permissible, then the floodgates will truly open, as all sorts of compensation claims will be made against referees making strange decisions, tea-ladies dishing up dodgy sandwiches, Michael Fish for saying it wouldn’t rain, and God-knows-who, seen as unfairly responsible for teams gong down. It may not be much of a time to be a banker or a venture capitalist at the moment, but, if this judgement stays, it promises to be a bumper time to be a lawyer.
None of this excuses Hammers involvement in such transparently spiv-like businesses (no offence intended to any spivs that are reading, apparently there are one or two in East London ), but it is a jungle out there and those running the club should have known better than to get drawn into its “anything goes” practices that are the jungle norm.
Despite all these matters, on the field it’s going pretty well. Four wins out of six is a fabulous start. With two of the teams that finished above us last year – Everton and Portsmouth – making very stuttering starts to their campaigns, and Hull currently holding down a top-half place that won’t last, we have every incentive to attempt what looked very unlikely at the start of the season – a European place.
There were many who felt that the Popular Front for the Liberation of West Ham from the Deadweight of Curbishleyism, of which I was a leading propagandist and activist, overdid it, were too harsh and damning and far too negative. But when you witness the cultural change that Zola has brought within just a couple of weeks, the Popular Front know that the ends justified the means. And besides, we didn’t kill him.
In that short time Zola has liberated the players and the fans. Football is coming home at Upton Park. In a day and age when, unfortunately, the word “academy” has been tainted and means little more than some grubby little capitalist getting their grubby little paws on a school building and the land around it, then converting some of the classrooms into luxury flats for a quick buck, and attempting to squeeze more profits out of education, the “academy of football” is starting to mean something again.
When I saw us nestling in 5th place in the league table after the win at Fulham, for the first time in ages I checked to see who was above us that we could possibly catch rather than worry about who was below us. At the beginning of the season I was dreading October 26th when we are home to Arsenal. I work in a school dominated by Gooners, and under Curbishley I was expecting us to be trounced – the only compensation being that it was the beginning of half-term and the kids may have forgotten about it by the time we came back. But now I hear myself screaming “Bring it on!” – I wish we were playing them this week. When we do face them I doubt there will be many points between us. Mind you we do have to play Hull next week…
Earlier this season I was bemoaning the lack of quality in depth in the squad and gave examples of players who were tryers but just not up to it. Mattie and Natalie fell into that bracket then, but look at them now and you have two highly motivated players, desperate to to do well, really working at their game and improving all the time. Why, even Lucas Neill looks motivated (I didn’t say he’s any better, just more motivated) And Zola’s insistence that the players enjoy playing, and won’t get bollocked for giving the ball away if they are trying to play good football, is giving them the freedom to improvise and entertain. Our Saturday afternoons are filled with excitement and anticipation again. Thank you Gianfranco. And Curbishley, you boring little man, if you are awake, look and learn.
Today I fancy we are in for a tough game. Three wins out of three at home means that teams are going to come here very defensively-minded and seek a goal on the break. Bolton are dull as shite but look a bit more solid than they did a year ago. I’m sure Steve Clarke is working hard at tightening up our defensive play but he can only work with the material he has got and I’m not convinced we have a solid partnership in defence yet. In terms of attack Zola has shown that he is keen to use the wings and the key to unlocking defensively-minded teams will surely be to use the full width of the pitch to stretch them and also have players like Di Michele drawing players to him, then weaving some magic on the ground. I haven’t made any match predictions this season yet, so there is no harm in me saying 1-0, goal by Mark Noble – I might even put money on it. Enjoy the game – I do these days! COYI!!!
It’s a closely guarded secret but I can reveal that our next sponsors are going to be “Debtsure” – the UK debt solutions specialists whose catchy slogan is “we can clear 70% of your debts”. They have won the contract just ahead of the Consumer Credit Counselling Service – “a registered charity offering free confidential advice and support to anyone who is worried about debt”, who themselves just about pipped Scott Duxbury’s first choice – Lehman Brothers – that right bunch of bankers. So, all you Hammers can look forward to ordering your shirts again without the discredited XL which has flown into the ground. Now we will have the words “Debtsure; Paying off those bastards in Sheffield very slowly”, proudly emblazoned on our chests and pie-filled tummies.
There was never any doubt that the dodgy South American deal was going to come back and bite us on the arse and the rumours are it could cost us £30million or more, though I suspect the actual amount will be smaller. One of the problems about it is that we won’t know for a while. It is unlikely to be confirmed until well into the new year, and unless we also imported large quantities of drugs from South America at the same time or there is a pot of gold that one of our directors has been keeping for such a rainy day, it certainly puts paid to any interesting forays into the transfer market in January. The best that we can hope for there is to pick up inflated prices for some of our dummies and to get a couple more loan players. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. Di Michele and Ilunga are settling in well and making their mark.
When it comes to assessing the merits of the compensation claim, there is no doubt that the whiff of hypocrisy is all around, What is so different about the arrangements that Man U or Liverpool have made with Honest Kia Joorabchian for Tevez and Mascherano? Who owns the players now? And why were Sheffield United so quiet when we were languishing in bottom place for so long that awful season? Now, I might be a bit mutton, but was there even a teeny-weeny peep out of them when they thumped us 3-0 in April 2007 with Tevez playing, and barely a few matches left? Sheffield United went down not because of Tevez but because they were crap. They may deserve pity for being crap, but nobody deserves compensation for being crap.
If West Ham don’t succeed in getting this judgement overturned in a higher court, if such a challenge is permissible, then the floodgates will truly open, as all sorts of compensation claims will be made against referees making strange decisions, tea-ladies dishing up dodgy sandwiches, Michael Fish for saying it wouldn’t rain, and God-knows-who, seen as unfairly responsible for teams gong down. It may not be much of a time to be a banker or a venture capitalist at the moment, but, if this judgement stays, it promises to be a bumper time to be a lawyer.
None of this excuses Hammers involvement in such transparently spiv-like businesses (no offence intended to any spivs that are reading, apparently there are one or two in East London ), but it is a jungle out there and those running the club should have known better than to get drawn into its “anything goes” practices that are the jungle norm.
Despite all these matters, on the field it’s going pretty well. Four wins out of six is a fabulous start. With two of the teams that finished above us last year – Everton and Portsmouth – making very stuttering starts to their campaigns, and Hull currently holding down a top-half place that won’t last, we have every incentive to attempt what looked very unlikely at the start of the season – a European place.
There were many who felt that the Popular Front for the Liberation of West Ham from the Deadweight of Curbishleyism, of which I was a leading propagandist and activist, overdid it, were too harsh and damning and far too negative. But when you witness the cultural change that Zola has brought within just a couple of weeks, the Popular Front know that the ends justified the means. And besides, we didn’t kill him.
In that short time Zola has liberated the players and the fans. Football is coming home at Upton Park. In a day and age when, unfortunately, the word “academy” has been tainted and means little more than some grubby little capitalist getting their grubby little paws on a school building and the land around it, then converting some of the classrooms into luxury flats for a quick buck, and attempting to squeeze more profits out of education, the “academy of football” is starting to mean something again.
When I saw us nestling in 5th place in the league table after the win at Fulham, for the first time in ages I checked to see who was above us that we could possibly catch rather than worry about who was below us. At the beginning of the season I was dreading October 26th when we are home to Arsenal. I work in a school dominated by Gooners, and under Curbishley I was expecting us to be trounced – the only compensation being that it was the beginning of half-term and the kids may have forgotten about it by the time we came back. But now I hear myself screaming “Bring it on!” – I wish we were playing them this week. When we do face them I doubt there will be many points between us. Mind you we do have to play Hull next week…
Earlier this season I was bemoaning the lack of quality in depth in the squad and gave examples of players who were tryers but just not up to it. Mattie and Natalie fell into that bracket then, but look at them now and you have two highly motivated players, desperate to to do well, really working at their game and improving all the time. Why, even Lucas Neill looks motivated (I didn’t say he’s any better, just more motivated) And Zola’s insistence that the players enjoy playing, and won’t get bollocked for giving the ball away if they are trying to play good football, is giving them the freedom to improvise and entertain. Our Saturday afternoons are filled with excitement and anticipation again. Thank you Gianfranco. And Curbishley, you boring little man, if you are awake, look and learn.
Today I fancy we are in for a tough game. Three wins out of three at home means that teams are going to come here very defensively-minded and seek a goal on the break. Bolton are dull as shite but look a bit more solid than they did a year ago. I’m sure Steve Clarke is working hard at tightening up our defensive play but he can only work with the material he has got and I’m not convinced we have a solid partnership in defence yet. In terms of attack Zola has shown that he is keen to use the wings and the key to unlocking defensively-minded teams will surely be to use the full width of the pitch to stretch them and also have players like Di Michele drawing players to him, then weaving some magic on the ground. I haven’t made any match predictions this season yet, so there is no harm in me saying 1-0, goal by Mark Noble – I might even put money on it. Enjoy the game – I do these days! COYI!!!
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