What is to be done?

OLAS 471 November 28th 2009

The plans for building a new stadium have gone rather quiet. But when they are revived no doubt we will be promised one of those soulless, state of the art, bowl-shaped structures, with standardised seating all tastefully coloured in claret and blue, and every naff corporate touch you could imagine. And toilets fit or human beings? Naturally.

I have a simpler suggestion – it’s called “The Big Top” first developed apparently by an American called J Purdy Brown. Because that is what we seem to be fit for at Upton Park. Clowns are supposed to make you laugh with their clumsy lolloping feet and their exaggerated klutz-like behaviour; superannuated professional footballers are not. But can anyone honestly say that recent performances, especially away from home, where we have thrown away 2-0 leads twice in succession and then failed on both occasion to win these games against 10 men, are anything other than the stuff of clowns whose natural home is not a football stadium but a circus tent?

I’ve been a loyal supporter of the Zola Revolution and am still a believer, but I am starting now to get just a little tired of hearing vacuous garbage such as: “it was a strange game”, or “it was a crazy game’. I think we need to face the grim truth and have a solid and thought-out strategy for dealing with it that goes beyond what he and Steve Clarke have already attempted and, so far this season, failed miserably with.

The fight-back against Arsenal and the crucial win over Aston Villa seemed to indicate we might be approaching a turning point, but the pathetic collapse to a very ordinary Everton reserve side, and the farce of handing a lifeline to Hull City, one of the poorest teams in the league – to the extent that we needed to conjure the equaliser to rescue a draw – suggest that we have not reached that turning point yet.

Everyone likes to look for positives. We scored three goals away from home; Carlton Cole is back (even if he has forgotten which end he needs to head the ball into); Da Costa scored a neat goal; the weather wasn’t too bad… (help me, please, I’m running out of positives). But I do think we have to face up to how bad it is sooner rather than later.

I’m quite expecting our circus-like goings on to continue at least up to Christmas. We may win or draw a game or two along the way but if we continue to “defend” in the manner we have done so far this season, we are also likely to suffer some very heavy defeats (especially to Man U and Chelsea) which will seriously affect our goal difference – and in the scramble at the bottom goal difference may be a decisive factor (Wigan take note).

So what is to be done? Well, here’s a little mantra for our back four to start chanting: “Giving away free kicks just outside our penalty area is not big and not clever. Don’t do it.”

Perhaps our defenders should remove the SBOBET logo from their shirts and replace with “FRAGILE: Do not shake. Handle with care. Keep upright” because they are showing serious signs that they just can’t cope. Faubert was unlucky with the penalty decision but he plainly does not know how to defend. Slow-motion Gabbidon looks a shadow of the player he once was. Upson looks about as interested and motivated as my cat when it’s shagged out and sleeping on the washing pile. He also shouldn’t be captaining the team (that’s Upson not my cat) as he shows no leadership or inspirational qualities. And if he’s not sure what “inspirational” means he should think about what ex-hammer Jimmy Bullard meant to Hull last week. Upson was very lucky not to have been responsible for handing Hull a fourth goal because his challenge on a Hull forward near the end of the game was a far more obvious penalty than the one the ref had already given.

This time last year I was mightily relieved that the irrepressibly boring Curbishley had been dumped. And quite rightly too. Despite the lack of many points on the board by the end of October I had faith and optimism that what Zola and Clarke were doing would pay off in the longer run.

Of course I don’t want Curbs or anyone like him back here but I have to admit that I’ve run out of optimism and faith – and patience. I have no expectations at all of us progressing, just a faint hope that a few teams will struggle even more than us and by some miracle we survive. I have no idea what Zola and Clarke are expected to achieve with the piss-poor squad we have. Selling our better players and either not replacing them or bringing in injury prone dodos or second rate Italians from Serie B, cannot do anything but weaken us. We are seriously missing James Collins, and don’t tell anyone you heard me say this, but we are missing Lucas Neill too.

For the first time in more than four decades of following West Ham I am craving a really boring 1-0 win, followed by another excruciatingly boring 1-0 win. Six points and two clean sheets would do wonders wouldn’t it? How to do it I don’t know because, in order for that to happen, we need to playing teams of our level – like Grimsby or Darlington. I’m not sure that Burnley fit the bill and as for Man U…

We have literally taken our eye off the ball. While we were focussed on how lightweight we were up front, with Deano permanently crocked (like we just noticed) Keiron Dyer almost permanently crocked, and Bellamy long gone, we hadn’t noticed the huge hole that had been dug in our defence especially around the right back position. I think we have all been surprised that given our lack of any natural goalscorers, we have actually managed to score 19 goals in our 13 league games to date and that 9 different players have found the net for us. While a proven goalscorer would be a welcome arrival in January, the key areas that have to be strengthened if we are to give ourselves the best chance of survival must be the full back positions. There is no adequate cover for Ilunga, who hopefully will come back soon from injury, and we have no right back. Any club with speedy or tricky wingers will want to play us every week.

Of course any speculation about what might happen in January must rest on some mugs investing in the “going concern” that West Ham masquerades as. The likely scenario if we are not taken over is not nice. It is total meltdown…which kind of means that the players have to somehow lift themselves to get results in the next few weeks so that not only will someone out there want to buy us but that players may want to come here to build an exciting and successful future for themselves. I’m trying hard here to remain positive but to be honest I can’t even convince myself.

Back on the pitch, I don’t think we will be able to hold on to Upson in January (even though he is playing poorly). He wants to maintain his England place to go to South Africa next summer and he won’t do that in a defence that is shipping at least two goals every week. So we need to be thinking now of who will be the next captain. To many supporters, Scotty Parker might seem the obvious choice but I don’t think his temperament is right. He may be a tidy and skilful player but he gets booked very frequently and has tantrums. What he’ll be like when he turns three years old I don’t know. A year or two back I could imagine Mark Noble being groomed for the role of captain but his progress seems to have halted, and though I have not heard that he is injured he was left out of the Everton game and didn’t make the squad against Villa. has he had a big falling out with management?

There are two players that currently show the potential for leadership on the pitch although both will no doubt be targets for the poachers and vultures in January and we will need to work hard to persuade them not to jump ship. They are Jack Collisson and Valon Behrami. Keep both of them and make one the captain and we may have a chance of staying up and even climbing the table.

In the meantime enjoy the game today. Accept that whichever team gets the second goal might not win. Look out for jugglers and tightrope walkers and Faubert the Clown. COYI!!!!