Baracking on the terraces

OLAS 446 8 November 2008

By now we will know if one long-distance West Ham fan will be holding down the most powerful job in the world. While his enemies have tried to pin the labels “terrorist”, “muslim”, and “fanatic” on him, the evidence shows that his only true fanaticism is the one that we all share here at OLAS. A few months ago Barack Obama was outed as a West Ham fan. And it didn’t affect his poll ratings at all. Apparently his family members in Kent are Hammers-crazy and when he visited them five or six years ago they won him over and he follows our fortunes excitedly.

If he is indeed the president by now, I would recommend that as one of his first actions of foreign policy he considers sending over an elite force to zap Sheffield United’s bosses. The British government doesn’t normally object to American interventions here (or anywhere else) – what with extraordinary rendition and all that – so I’m sure Gordon Brown will turn a blind eye. (I’m told he’s got one specially for that purpose).

This particular zapping action would achieve two objectives – it would give those annoying tossrags in Sheffield exactly what they so richly deserve and it would finally, after many decades, give me an American military intervention that I could support and wouldn’t feel obliged to take to the streets to protest against. Okay, I would have preferred it if Mandela, Castro or Chavez had declared their admiration for West Ham first, but Obama will do for now.

Just before we forget George Bush, let me tell you about an incident that happened recently, when a couple of his advisers found him chuckling away in the oval office, looking very pleased with himself.
“Yo George," they said, “what’s cooking?”
He replied, “I’ve finished my jigsaw in just two weeks”
“OK” one of his advisers said, “but Mr President we’ve got trouble in I-raq, we’ve got finance problems at home, how can you get so thrilled about doing a jigsaw puzzle in two weeks?”
“Look at the box boys,” replied Bush triumphantly. “Just here, it says 3-5 years!”

If Obama’s presidential slogan was “Change We Need”, then “Change We Got” is certainly our situation at Upton Park. The honeymoon period was short and after four defeats on the spin Zola took the team to Middlesborough facing his toughest managerial challenge. I admire his positivity. I like the way he talks about and to the players and his response to the fans. But November will be the defining month. That‘s when we come face to face with the kind of teams we could either be competing for 6th place with or scrapping to avoid relegation amongst.

Outside of the top four, its anybody’s league, with only Aston Villa showing the consistent form that should guarantee a high finish. But it could also be anybody’s fate – big clubs and small – to be involved in the relegation dogfight, including ours. It is especially tricky this year as there is no equivalent of Derby County. Stoke, who have looked relatively weak pulled off a great result against Arsenal, and the Spuds, who have been propping up the table much to our joy and mirth, have started to pick up several points with Harry the Geezer at the helm.

I guess we know now why Harry ruled himself out of a return to Upton Park. Why go to a club on the verge of bankruptcy when there’s another one down the road with money to burn? Harry is getting busy reinventing a mythical attachment to Spurs as a youngster. It’s bollox of course. He grew up near West Ham in an Arsenal supporting family. But let’s not allow facts to get in the way! And besides I still love the guy.

We should be looking for a minimum of 8 points from the four games in November if we are going to stake our claim to being part of the battle within the top half of the table. A point away at Middlesborough was a useful start, though we know it could have and should have been three.

I am impressed by Zola’s commitment to playing attacking football even when the results have gone against us – the total opposite of what Turdishley would have done. (I hear that Turdishley wants to sue for constructive dismissal – he probably has a case but they might counter-sue him for being a boring cnut, which is just a solid a case).

Whenever possible Zola has tried to play 4-3-3. I can’t help recalling how back in the swinging ‘60s when I first came here, we went one step further, playing 4-2-4, with Ronnie Boyce and Martin Peters in the midfield, and up front two wingers – Peter Brabrook and Johnny Sissons and two forwards – Johnny Byrne and Geoffrey Hurst. We swept forward quickly with such movement and style…

it’s OK I’ve woken up again and realised we’re in 2008. Of course, nobody would risk playing just two players in midfield these days, but three in midfield is possible, especially if they are quality players. We definitely have three quality midfielders in Behrami, Parker and Noble, and, with a big performance at Boro, Jack Collison showed he is quite a prospect too.
I had thought that Faubert was quality too but he is much too erratic.

Our major problem is that now we have Behrami and Noble out for a month we have a mixture of clowns like Bowyer and Boa Morte, and donkeys like Mullins as our replacements. Which is why, despite a very determined and disciplined performance against Arsenal, in which Robert Green was outstanding, we couldn’t hang on and eventually got overrun. (And by the way I think that Wenger’s fulsome praise for Greenie’s performance was a bit of fishing).

The Arse didn’t deserve to win by two goals, but apart from Di Michele’s sizzler that was turned over and Bellamy’s break where Flymetothemunia was fortunate to save with his leg, we didn’t threaten at all. If our midfield played tight with quick short passes, our forwards were too far apart and could rarely reach each other with the final ball.

Having given our all against Arsenal, the odds on a similar performance three days later, in front of 75,000 at the Mancs, were too long and we were completely outplayed. Still, by all accounts our second half performance sufficed to keep the score down and avoid total embarrassment.

I’ve been reluctant to criticize Zola because I think his approach is the right one – and he’s only little – but against Arsenal his substitutions were too late and they played in the wrong position. I can’t see any point at all in putting Etherington on the right wing.

But what must be giving Zola nightmares now is the recognition of how thin on quality our squad is. Given that our financial crisis rules out much happening in January (apart from me celebrating my birthday), then the way forward depends on Zola finding ways to develop and bring in the youngsters (which he did at Middlesborough), and on Steve Clarke tightening up the defence and giving the whole team the steely determination that he helped to drill into the players at Chelski.

And maybe that’s what we saw for most of the game at Middlesborough. The big improvement there was penetration up front, with Bellamy and Sears combining well enough to be a constant threat. This also meant that we didn’t need to bring on Tristan – who is still fighting for his fitness. In contrast to the handful of goal attempts over two games against the Arse and Manure, we had 15 goal attempts at Boro with 8 of them on target.

Everton will be a difficult game. Their season started badly and Moyes looked a worried man but with back-to-back wins without conceding over Bolton and Fulham preceded by a draw with the Mancs, they will arrive with their confidence restored. Hopefully we’ll have Scotty Parker back from injury and Tristan will have had another week to get match fit – both of which will increase our options.

The “Change We Need” today is a win and a clean sheet. I had an idea before the season started of changing and cleaning my sheets at home every time West Ham keep a clean sheet. I hoped that the power of telepathy would prove mutually beneficial and ensure regular clean sheets at our home, Upton Park, and my home, Tufnell Park. Another American who fought for change, Martin Luther King jr, said there is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come. So far this one has not proven to be my best idea. Enjoy the game. COYI!!!