|
I have been lucky enough to experience all of the ups and downs of the past 30 years. Add in an extra 60 - 80 for my grandfather, great uncles & father (around 70% of time season ticket holders) and I feel I can ask for everyones respect in hearing me out and reply to any views accordingly- either positively or negatively.
Firstly in regards to current fan forums - fuck off selecting Johnny Nobody to represent our views. You may be West Ham fans, but honestly you are obviously nothing to either me or the past generations of my family. No offence at all intended, maybe you have years of history - but I have never heard anything of it? This may be a wrong way to begin this thread, however what gives anyone the right to sit and listen to a bunch of businessmen (however good or bad their intentions) preaching to anyone the right to change my club without me, my family or the other thousands of supporters who followed this club, all fighting the thick, the thin and the violent. Yet they have been given no right to an actual opinion or option on our future. I accept that it is too late now, but then again where has our supposed democratic leaders really taken this world? However this is obviously another story all together. Rant over. For now.
So... back to the football - i shall begin with our ones time play off hero Ricardo Vaz Te. Now I personally have always been one to actually quite like Vaz Te. As a striker in the Championship, he almost single handedly dragged our underachieving team to promotion with his goals. I have felt sorry for him a bit since promotion as he has been pushed out to the wing. However he truly now has no business starting for a Premier League team going into their 3rd season. He would be lucky starting at a Burnley or a Leicester. In fact a return to League 1 Barnsley to fire them back to promotion is more than likely his true level. He had no big pre-season and has done nothing since demanding a move for first team football (maybe a year ago now?) So what is he doing as a regular starter at the moment?
I do not for one minute believe that Allardyce is attempting some sort of kamikaze team selection, somewhere in that brain of his he see's reason. I suspect it is because he has Premeier League experience to play in front of our new inexperienced left back - Aaaron Creswell.
This is something that is consistently the downfall of a negative manager. Rather than trust the judgement of the signing (maybe an Allardyce signing, maybe not?) However lets be truthful, although it is absolute early days - Creswell is a class act. Anyone who has actually watched West Ham week in/week out over the past two decades, what other left backs other than Creswell have we had who have had any class? David Burrows, a 60 year old Stuart Pearce, 58 year old Nigel Winterburn, maybe Rufas Brevett? Chris Powell? but in general since Julian Dicks he is by far the best young left back we have had. Bar none. There is no comparison. (I am not having any Fabio Daprela (23) - not yet anyway).
Returning to the Vaz Te on the left wing conundrum - Jarvis is injured - fair enough. But there must be other options, Vaz Te is a forward, always has been and always will be. People may argue, but please make a point for a season where he has been more effective as a left winger than a striker and I honestly will doff my cap to you. To be truly fair then he probably could cause damage to a full back in lower leagues with his pace and flair, but in the Premier League? At worst he is an impact sub for a Burnley. At best he should be leading the line at Barnsley.
To be honest I am truly getting more than fed up with it now. I honestly can not believe we have signed Alex Song. What an incredible signing. The cynic in me imagines he has some Andy Carroll injury where he can play 8 - 10 games on loan and hope Man Utd snap him up on the basis of it. The optimist in me sees potentially the best holding midfielder we've had since Mascherano (or Mullins - dependant upon either mine or Curbs judgement is correct- the jury is still out, so I guess we just have to wait and see if he ever actually gets another job...).
To be completely honest I am certain there are not many bigger critics than me of our owners. I like people to go about their jobs quietly - let their work speak for themselves. Only those who know their weaknesses need to shout from the roof tops how good they are.
At the moment we have a 70+ year porno enthusiast masquerading as a pleasant old man - though I'm sure i'm not the only one who wouldn't mind access to his dvd collection. Then there is David Sullivan - one of the youngest porn made multi-millionaires of all time. Basically a Hugh Hefner without the attractive trimmings saddled with a son resembling Pugsley Adams who just happens to be our main source of gossip on twitter. Finally there is Karen Brady - a lady who has probably spent so much cash on cigars trying to cozy up to David Cameron that Monica Lewinsky is even shaking her head in disbelief.
However, the big problem is...where and what do we do from here?
Sullivan has in fact for once put his money where his mouth is. He has signed very good players. Not only that, he has signed players to fit into the Allardyce system and full respect where its is due , he has actually put his money where his mouth is for once.
So to continue this very long winded article, here is my view on our incoming transfers to date:
Creswell - great prospect, good in defence (so far), great crosser of the ball. Can and will play for England.
Jenkinson - great prospect - same as Creswell, except rather than Ipwisch, he actually played a few for Arsenal so got the obligatory call up for England. One downside is that Wenger very rarely allows good young players to go, so we are in a no win situation - play well, back he goes, play shit, back he goes.
Still though, a very interesting player to see from close up. Debauchy is certainly not a first team Arsenal player for more than 2 years, and Chambers is now supposedly a centre half. So who knows? Excited to see him as first choice right back for us though.
No Centre Half - YET, but to let Reid go and replace him with Micah Richards looks good on paper but is definitely slightly risky. However if Reid doesn't want to sign then fuck him off, a half maori/dane who has no real loyalty to any country, let alone club, is no use to anyone in the long run. Unless he signs a 5 year deal, just get rid. I've lived in NZ, loveliest people in the world, but one who has spent half his life in between countries? He'll think of no one but himself & his family. Fair play to him, but we also need to do the same.
Kouyate: Looking like the best signing we've made since Di Canio. I will say no more than this. But I have too...what an absolute player this lad looks. Alex Song & Kouyate as a pairing is frightening. If Kouyate continues as he is, he will be playing for a top four team within 12 months having made us £20 - 25mil profit. Slightly depressing view, but true in the modern age. Unless our owners truly believe in what they are saying in defending our move to the Olympic Stadium of course. This man could be the first test.
Alexander Song - Honestly thought this was a Sullivan ploy to gain more season ticket sign ups. The first signing at West Ham since Tevez & Mascherano to literally stop me in my tracks and have to re-read the story twice. As I said earlier, I just hope he is fit, no idea at all how he will fit in the first 11 - but he will. He should also be our best player. Now all we will need our goals....
Strangely the attacking signings are yet to really set me on fire:
Zarate: looks decent - maybe a superior Di Michele or Diamante. Always nice to have a flair player, but from Allardyces history the flair player really needs to be something special to make the team i.e. Okacha, Djorkaef, Anelka. Seems like he could be a decent impact sub, but can't help thinking that if Ravel Morrison wasn't such an absolute liability away from the club, now would be his time to lead us into the new Stadium. He has the talent and ability, he has the midfield behind him, but does he have the intelligence?
Valencia - Though he looked shell shocked mid week, he has also looked lively and willing. Looks well worth a gamble at just £1.2mil though....how much is Remy going for by the way? Or even better how much for Ballotelli? Make no mistake - this is an absolute dig at the club - mo idea who sanctioned the 12mil signing of an Ecuadorian? Maybe one of Sullivans sons had a good season from signing him on Football Manager? To be fair it is the owners money (hopefully?) Plus Allardyce has shown he has no clue on signing strikers to fit an attacking system so why not gamble on a South American who scored at a world cup? Surely it can't be a Raduciolu mark ll so I guess lets give him a go! Unfortunately in a market where idiots like Fulham are paying £11mil for McCormack we probably didn't have much choice. It does make me wonder just how much a Paolo Wanchope would be worth in todays market? I'd say that the price for Valencia makes Wanchope a £15mill these days - at least! He did score from the half way line at old trafford before we signed him remember! It's worth keeping these things in mind before judging strikers these days, particularlrly when we have a manager who genuinely only trusts a very particular forward to lead the line/ In fairness to Sullivan though, Kouyate at £7mil should cover any loss we make in this or any transfer window in the next half decade if he continues as he has. But still....sometimes you just have to wonder,,,how many years will it be until we sign a truly decent goal scoring striker again.
Sakho - Loved his energy, definitely looks like he could be a danger. Fancy him to possibly be an actually decent Samassi Abou! Will be a pain in the arse of a fit Andy Carroll. However whatever striker we sign, I would love to set a fit, sharp goal scoring Andy Caroll! Im sure Im not the only one there though!
I may have missed one or two - Diego Poyet for instance (could be the best of the lot) but I haven't seen hardly anything of him to judge, and for now I am sure the time has come for me to bow out of this analysis.
I honestly think the one certainty is that Allarydyce will be replaced - and soon. The owners had a business plan when appointing him and that would have been to have us safely mid table with one season left before the big move. Hence his contract expiry date. I honestly don't think Allardyce doubts his abilities to takes us forward, this is his one big last chance to be a success at a big team - hence his early season attempts of playing possession football. Unfortunately as today has shown, it is just not possible. The biggest problem is (as it is for most British managers), you can't just tell English players to get it down and play. There NEEDS to be movement.
For the first time in my football life (for various non football reasons) my father and I sat in the Alpari Upper tier vs Spurs. The lack of movement was just astonishing. Honestly watch us play closely, when a defender or deep lying midfielder have the ball, they have nowhere to go other than short, square or long. It may be easier said than done, but if you want your team to play on the floor, the players HAVE to move into space. Is this not the point in the game? Booting it into space to run into...thats just easy, hoofing the ball to a big mans head to knock down is even easier. BUT to train a team to exploit space and pass short, fast direct attacking football to a player moving into space....now that is football. I haven't seen it very often in football over the yearsl, maybe once or twice when Arsenal had Henry and Pires and Wenger spoke of the diagonal pass. But once again it has seemed to have been replaced by midfield/possession control.
Anyone playing a 5 man midfield deserves all they get, it is the antithesis of what football is all about. Even the 3-5-2, although slightly more attacking than the 4-5-1 is still anti-football. Does anyone else remember Trevor Brooking coming in, going for it and playing 4-3-3 with Les Ferdinand, Kanoute and Di Canio up front, rotating Defoe with that? We almost stayed up and smashed a lot of teams. Formations are important but not as important as the movement of players off of the ball.
Anyways, I digress. I have been reading a lot of other West Ham websites these days. Including one in particular that are now advertising celebrity(isn) writers who will write once a week. It annoyed me a little. Who the fuck are they really? They are not you, and they are not me. For one I can certainly guarantee that they have not had the exposure that I have had to real West Ham supporters. To the real people, the proper fans. i may not be able to write regularly but sometimes I can do a job. Vinny went above and beyond, I can not replace him in his match reports. But I can write, and given enough support on here, I could try to do it once or twice a week.
Either the way, just keep the faith no matter what. I read on a thread on here the other day that the reason we are all West Ham is because we have had a life time of being West Ham. Young, old, middle aged...this club has made us who we are today - whether that is a small part of your secret pessimism of why bad things have happened in your life or even a large part of your hope and optimism in what you hope will happen in your future.
We are West Ham. We have just under 2 more seasons before everything that we know and what our forefathers knew will change forever. As always - come old, come new, come rain, come sun, whether we play over the local park or at an athletics stadium. For better or for worse, lets fucking enjoy every moment of our West Ham.
|
