October 2016 – Page 4 – Under The Hammers

Ponchos For Goalposts: Part deux!

There’ll always be an England (as long as we can find eleven players).

England Team A few weeks back I used the tedium of the international break to take a look at the composition of the squads in the Premier League in relation to nationality. Overall it showed that only 35% of Premier League players were English although this increased to 40% if you included the other home nations. I wondered at the time whether if you looked at those actually making it onto the pitch the situation would be even worse and so have used this recent break to undertake further research in the context of the continued underwhelming performance of the England national team.

England appear to be in a Groundhog Day cycle where they generally qualify with some ease (usually from a group where even a mid-table Championship would hope to do well) and then disappoint when it comes to the finals. We then replace the manager and start the cycle again. In truth this has been going on for almost 50 years (well before the Premier League and the foreign invasion) but it does remain a conundrum whereby England has the most famous and cosmopolitan league in the world but a extremely ordinary and uninspiring national team. Are the two related in anyway?

So far this season we have had seven rounds of Premier League matches; a total of 70 games in total which have featured 414 different players of which 342 have started at least one game. Bournemouth and Burnley have been the most frugal with fewest different starters (14) while Sunderland have had the most different starters (22). Chelsea have used fewest players if you included substitute players (18) while Sunderland have been the most lavish with 25. (It is an interesting contrast with Aston Villa winning the First Division in 1981 using only 14 players all season; how the game has changed.)

Of those starting and featuring (i.e. including substitute appearances) in a Premier League the proportion that are eligible to represent England is 34% and 33% respectively; this is consistent with the overall squad make-ups and so my assumption that it would be lower was not correct.

Bournemouth are the most English team with 72% of starters while Watford have had the least at 9% (just Troy Deeney). Only 3 clubs achieved over 50% of English starters (Bournemouth, Burnley and Palace) while Watford, Arsenal and Chelsea were all below 15%. The equivalent figure for West Ham is 25%. Collectively, the ‘so-called’ Big 4 (two Manchester Clubs, Chelsea and Arsenal) managed to scrape together 18% of Englishmen.

The average Premier League side then has less than 4 players eligible to represent England in any given lineup. In total that is somewhere over 70 playing Premier League football on a regular basis (allowing for injuries) giving them a 1 in 3 chance of being selected for an England squad. To my knowledge, Joe Hart is the only English player of note performing overseas.

The big ‘chicken and egg’ question that this raises is: Does the lack of quality English players lead to the recruitment of so many overseas players or does the number of foreign players restrict the development of good young home grown talent? Whatever way it is difficult not to conclude that the the declining number of English players in the Premier League must have had an adverse effect on the national side. How to fix this without impacting the ‘brand’?

Far be it from me to defend the largely clueless England manager’s that we have seen over the years but there has not really been the depth of talent for them to work with. All the more reason, in my opinion, to find someone (like Sir Alf) who has a system and will then find the players to fit it; rather than the other way around.

No wonder my interest in the England team is going down quicker than sterling (the currency not the Man City player that is)!

Does Size Matter? Pitch and Goal Dimensions

Running the rule over the grounds to see who measures up!

Big and Little It is a misconception that all football pitches are the same size. They are not. Can you imagine this applying to some other sports? What if the distance between the stumps was different at Lords compared to the Oval? But the distance between the goals at the London Stadium is greater than it is at White Hart Lane.

The FA has followed the lead of UEFA and FIFA in recommending standard pitch dimensions. I wonder how many people know what the recommended size is? The Laws of the Game permit quite a big variation in the size of the pitch. The length of a pitch can be anywhere between 90 and 120 metres. The permitted width has an even greater range, and can be between 45 and 90 metres. These dimensions came into force in the 1897 draft of the Laws of the Game.

For “official matches” the length should be between 100 and 110 metres, whereas the width can vary between 64 and 75 metres. In an attempt to achieve consistency, the recommended dimensions are 105 metres x 68 metres. The Premier League wants all teams to have a pitch of this size, but does allow exceptions if it is impossible to comply due to the construction of the ground.

The pitch sizes at Arsenal, Hull, Manchester City, Manchester United, Southampton, Sunderland, Swansea, West Brom, Middlesbrough, Watford, and now West Ham, are all identical at the recommended size. Wembley is the same, as are all the major stadiums throughout Europe. But that is only eleven of the teams in the Premier League. The pitches at Burnley, Chelsea, Liverpool, Leicester, Crystal Palace, Everton, Bournemouth, Tottenham and Stoke are all smaller than the standard size. In fact depending on which teams are in the Premier League at any given time, there can be up to 9% difference between the areas of the largest and smallest pitches.

Stoke has the smallest pitch of the current Premier League teams at 100m x 66m, and I guess this relates back to the Tony Pulis days when they wanted the pitch to be as narrow as possible for the benefit of Rory Delap’s long throws. The Tottenham pitch is the same length as Stoke but just one metre wider. The Upton Park pitch measured 100.58m x 68m.

Now I have a problem with the size of pitches. Bearing in mind that they have remained unaltered for around 120 years, the size, speed and power of human beings has increased significantly in that time. If you consider the average height of men, the 100 and 1500 metre running times, and high jump and long jump distances, to take just five examples, then we have seen increases in size and performance between 7% and 20% in those five categories. The same is true for females. So in relative terms the pitch was much bigger in years gone by. With the size, speed and athleticism of modern man (and woman), the pitch is now relatively congested compared to the past.

To allow for this, pitches should probably be at least 10%-15% bigger than they are. In order to compensate for the increases in human performance then the length of pitches should be increased to around say 115-120 metres, and the width to 75-80 metres. Of course most stadiums could not cope with this (although ours could possibly get close!). The authorities could, perhaps, order clubs to increase the size of their pitches to the maximum possible that their ground would allow. They could, alternatively give clubs a period of time, say ten years, to construct new stadiums that the revised pitch sizes would fit into. With the billions of pounds of TV money around then this shouldn’t be a problem.

The alternative is to reduce the number of players on the pitch from 11 to 10 to achieve the same effect. 11 may have been appropriate some years ago, but 10 would now allow for the human performance increases. We’ve all seen games where two players have been sent off leaving 10v10 on the pitch. There is more room for everyone to express themselves, and less congestion. I urge the authorities to move to a 10-a-side game if they don’t proceed with an increased pitch size.

And while we are at it, the size of the goals has not changed in the period either. As a result I believe we should increase the height of the goal from 8 feet to 9 feet, and the width from 24 feet to 27 feet. Modern goalkeepers must find the goals relatively small to defend when compared to the custodians of years gone by, and these increases will mean that the number of goals scored will perhaps return to the levels of 100 years ago.

Like other aspects of life, football needs to adapt to the times. It has never recognised the increases in human size and athleticism throughout the history of the game, and these changes would undoubtedly be beneficial to the entertainment value.

The Boy Never Quite Made It: Ray Houghton

The One That Got Away Series.

Boy Never Quite Made It OK, so to suggest that someone who won 2 League Championships, 2 FA Cups, 2 League Cups, played in 2 World Cups and a Euro Finals ‘didn’t quite make it‘ may be something of a stretch. In the context of this series though Ray Houghton is another West Ham academy graduate who, for some reason, never became an established first-team player at the club.

Houghton was not a young player who had just trained with us for a while before being enticed away by another club (John Terry) or a youngster sold as part of a relegation fire sale (Glen Johnson) but was a 20 year old professional who was considered surplus to requirements and made available on a free transfer. Tony Carr has been reported as saying that allowing Houghton to leave on a free “was the biggest transfer blunder he had seen during his years at Upton Park.”

Houghton was born in Glasgow but moved with his family to London as a 10 year old. He joined West Ham’s youth set up and during that time was called up to attend Under 18 training camps by Scotland youth supremo (and future manager) Andy Roxburgh but without being awarded any caps.

In May 1982 Houghton made his one and only appearance for West Ham when he came on as a substitute for George Cowie in an away fixture with Arsenal that West Ham lost 2-0. Cowie was another young Scot who did not make a mark at West Ham and the lineup that day also included another youngster Everard La Ronde who also had a short lived West Ham career. End of season games were often used back then as an opportunity to blood a few young players.

As an aside, West Ham had won the FA Youth Cup in 1981 beating Tottenham over two legs with a 2-1 aggregate score. The West Ham squad for the games of Vaughan, Keith, La Ronde, Reader, Ampofo, McPherson, (Bobby) Barnes, (Paul) Allen, Milton, Burvill, Schiavi, (Alan) Dickens had no place for Houghton who would have been eligible.

Ray Houghton Houghton was allowed to leave in the summer of 1982 and joined Fulham, then in Division 2, on a free transfer. There is not much written about the circumstances of his leaving and so it is difficult to tell if he was simply a late developer, whether his rejection spurred him on to what he subsequently achieved or whether his style just didn’t suit West Ham . Whatever the case manager John Lyall and the coaching staff did not see any potential that merited a further contract.

Houghton was an instant hit at Craven Cottage and his new manager Malcolm MacDonald allegedly asked Lyall “Do you have any other free transfers like that?” His energetic and all-action style of play was soon noticed and earned him a transfer to First Division Oxford United (where he scored in their 1986 League Cup final win) and then to Liverpool where he is spent the most productive years of his career.

As well as rejection at West Ham, Houghton did not receive a call to represent Scotland, the country of his birth, and eventually agreed to play for Jack Charlton’s Republic of Ireland side.. He earned 73 international caps and is remembered for winning goals against England in the 1988 Euros and against Italy in the 1994 World Cup.

Obviously it is pure conjecture but I wonder what impact Houghton could have made at West Ham from the mid 1980’s onwards as they looked to build on the 1985/86 success?

Offside: Changes Needed? – Part Two

Time to interfere with the offside rule and introduce video technology?

Offside Following on from my previous article where I discussed a radical change to the offside law and why it is necessary, I’ll add further to my reasoning today. The optical problems for the officials that I referred to is not the end of the story. Assistant referees have to remember that it is not an offence in itself for a player to be in an offside position. A player is in an offside position if any part of his head, body or feet is in the opponents’ half, and any part of the head, body or feet is nearer to the opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent, but at the same time he has to disregard the hands and arms of all players, including the goalkeepers.

The linesman should only then penalise the player in an offside position at the moment the ball is played or touched by a team-mate when he becomes involved in active play. This could mean interfering with play by playing the ball itself, or interfering with an opponent by preventing the opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by obstructing his line of vision, or challenging the opponent for the ball, or clearly attempting to play a ball which is close to him when this action impacts on his opponent, or making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of the opponent to play the ball.

Are you still with me because there is more to consider yet! This player in the offside position should also be penalised if he is gaining an advantage by playing the ball or interfering with an opponent when it has rebounded, or been deflected off the woodwork, or an opponent. Offside should also be penalised when the ball has been deliberately saved by an opponent. A save is when a player stops a ball which is going into or very close to the goal with any part of the body except the hands (unless the goalkeeper within the penalty area). But, a player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball (except from a deliberate save by any opponent) is not considered to have gained an advantage.

You probably think I am making all this up, but I am doing my best to interpret the rules and governance as provided in the IFAB Laws of the Game relating to offside for 2016-17. And I haven’t even finished yet! There are other considerations relating to both defending and attacking players leaving the field of play deliberately without permission. I won’t go into this in too much detail as I find it extremely hard to follow.

My proposal is simple, though. Firstly, I’d like to see the offside rule confined to the eighteen yards at each end of the pitch. I’m afraid I just cannot see the point of half of the pitch being involved. You cannot be considered to be goal hanging just inside your opponents’ half. I wonder if anybody anywhere has asked the question as to why we have persisted with offside in this great expanse for so many years?

Yes, they continue to tinker with the concept of interference, and active involvement, but it only serves to confuse the issue in a game that is generally very simple to understand. The introduction of this change would also have the benefit of stretching the game over a wider area rather than the players bunching up as they do as a result of the current offside law.

The assistant referees would still have to make the decisions that they do now, but surely it will be far simpler for them to do so if they only have the eighteen yard line to the goal line to worry about. But I then propose to take it further. To improve the accuracy of offside decisions at the higher levels of the game, then we must begin to use video technology.

Perhaps it needs to be introduced a little at a time, with extensive trials to ensure it is helping to improve the accuracy of key decision making in the game. So, for example, as a first step, when a goal is scored and there is a suspicion of offside the technology could be used to check the validity of the goal. Assistant referees must be encouraged not to raise their flag unless they are fairly certain of offside. The benefit of the doubt should always be given to the attacker. Video replays would only be necessary if a goal is subsequently scored.

It won’t be perfect but we will have greater accuracy and consistency than currently exists. Hazard was only slightly offside when he headed the ball in from Ramires cross in the Chelsea game at Upton Park in March 2015, but the replay showed within seconds that he was offside. In this example, at the moment the ball hit the net from Hazard’s header the referee would be asking the video referee “is there any reason to disallow the goal, for example for offside?” As we saw within seconds on Sky, the reply would be “yes he was offside, disallow the goal”. It wouldn’t hold up the game, the Chelsea players would still have been in the celebration process. Even if the referee had not asked the question, the video referee could have told him that the goal was offside.

If you haven’t read enough of my arguments and want to know more, then there are a number of frequently asked questions on the FA website to baffle you even further. But I’d like to think that the change suggested would improve the game. At the very least I’d like to see it tried out. It makes sense to me. What are the arguments against trying it? But will it be tried? Of course not, because the change is too radical. But should it? Of course it should.

The complexity of the other supplementary situations that I describe in this article must also be addressed. I remember once that it used to be a straightforward question “is the player in an offside position interfering with play?” If you added this to the 18 yard offside rule change, then surely it would be simpler for us all to understand.

Let’s Talk About Money

The conundrum of stadium, money, tradition and success.

Money Do you ever stop to consider why you support a football club? What is it that makes you want to invest so much time, money and emotion into the fortunes of a particular team? What do you get or want out of it in return?

Of course there is no simple answer as everyone has their own story and perspective. Originally it would have been about creating bonds and a sense of community; families, friends, territories and rivalries. Perhaps this still exists in the lower leagues at places such as Rochdale or Hartlepool (who I understand to be the most unsuccessful teams in history) but it has become less relevant at the top level; particularly in the Premier League where money and success rule. The dilemma for a team such as West Ham (or more importantly its supporters) is what constitutes success and what are you prepared to sacrifice to secure it?

It is no surprise to anyone that there is a strong correlation between how much money is available to a club and the level of success on the pitch; if we measure success by league position or trophies won. The move to the London Stadium was, no doubt, seen by the owners as an opportunity for the club to progress financially, to keep Tottenham off our patch and to increase the value of their investment. I don’t want to get involved in the merits or otherwise of the new stadium and we have to accept that there is no going back; like it or not we should concentrate on making the most of what we now have. We are now in the London Stadium; where can it take us?

“The clubs who have better financial resources have the better teams”

– A Wenger

Based on the financial accounts for 2014/15 West Ham were the 20th biggest club in Europe (in terms of revenue) and the 9th biggest in the UK. We were one of a cluster of English clubs with reasonably similar levels of revenue comprising Newcastle, Everton, West Ham, Aston Villa and Southampton. Manchester United are way ahead of everyone else followed by a closely grouped Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. There is then a gap to Tottenham before a further gap to our own group.

As Tottenham is the nearest financial target in our sights if we are to improve our relative position then I use them for comparison purposes only. In 2014/15 Tottenham had revenues of £196m compared to West Ham’s £122m. With a similar sized stadium they were able to generate more than us in Matchday (£41m/ £20m), TV (£95m/ £79m) and Commercial (£59m/ £24m) revenues. TV contributed 65% of West Ham’s revenue compared to Tottenham’s 49%.

The larger stadium will certainly generate incremental Matchday cash but it is difficult to see the direct impact that it will have on TV or Commercial activity; as these are more a function of team success and wider, higher profile. For the sponsors involved with football the attraction of Premier League clubs is the worldwide appeal of the major teams participating and this an area where both West Ham and Tottenham suffer in comparison with the (so-called) big 5 clubs. (In fact I ave not seen any significant major overseas profile for Manchester City yet but they can at least rely on the UAE for hefty sponsorship deals). Tottenham fare better than us with commercial sponsorship due to their longer and more regular involvement in European competition but they are still some way behind the others. It would be rare in Asia, for instance, to see locals wearing Tottenham or West Ham shirts and that is why our sponsors have tended to be local rather than international businesses. Breaking into that club and attracting overseas support is a major challenge for any new team.

So where does that leave us? Potentially with improved financial security and topping the also-rans-financial league I mentioned above, but with a mountain to climb if we want to see a sustainable step change in status. Over the last 4 years West Ham have been the 5th largest net transfer spenders (notable for our lack of large transfers out) and although this has brought relative improvement we remain firmly part of that mid-table pack. A realistic view is that it would appear virtually impossible to grow organically into a truly big club; only significant external investment can make that difference. Otherwise the future is the same mid-ranking club but in a much larger stadium.

And that brings us back to the original questions. What does success look like and how badly do we want it? Surely it should be better than 4 cups in 50 years but are we prepared to give up the remaining sense of community, tradition and what it means to be a Hammer in order to achieve it?

Source: Financial information taken from the excellent Swiss Ramble blog.

Offside: Changes Needed? – Part One

Raising the flag on problems and shortcomings of the current offside rule.

Offside I recently wrote an article where I posed the question, “what is the point of the penalty area?” In this I suggested the removal of the penalty area as it stands to be replaced by a line, which would stretch right across the pitch. The line would have nothing to do with the issuing of penalty kicks, but would be an instrumental line for a change in the ridiculous offside law (as it stands), which I will outline further starting with this article.

I’ve got a lot of views about offside and I’ve been reading about the law, FIFA guidance, referee guidance etc. One problem I have is that it has been proven in scientific research that human beings (including linesmen!) physically cannot move their eyes fast enough to take in all the necessary action. To make a correct decision they have to assess the positions of the player passing the ball, the player receiving the ball, and the second from last defender at the exact moment a pass is made, bearing in mind that they could be some distance apart, and possibly moving at speed in opposite directions.

I believe we need to look back in history to ascertain why the offside law was introduced in the first place. If you study the development of football in the 1860s, the offside law was probably the biggest bone of contention between the clubs in existence at the time who all had their own version of it.

A compromise was eventually agreed and written into the Laws of the Game in 1866, and was eventually adopted throughout. It was similar to the rule that exists today with the difference being that at a player was offside if he was in the opponents’ half, and he was nearer to the opponents’ goal line than both the ball and at least three opponents when receiving a pass from his team-mate.

The rule changed in 1925 with three opponents becoming two opponents. In 1990 the law was amended so that a player was onside if he was level with the second to last opponent. This change was considered to be part of a movement by the authorities to make the rules more conducive to attacking football and help the game to flow more freely.

But why was it introduced in the very first place? In the very early games of football, players would stand close to the opponents goal, a term known as goal-hanging (as happened a lot in the playground games of football in my day), and the ball could be played to them, where they would be in a good position to score, and obstruct the goalkeeper too. Quite clearly as the game developed it was realised that this was an unsatisfactory state of affairs.

But why do we have the situation where you can be offside in half of the area of the pitch? Can you really be goal-hanging more than fifty yards from goal? Once we’ve dispensed with the nonsensical penalty area that I previously referred to, I believe we should draw a line across the pitch, say 18 yards from the goal line. It doesn’t have to be necessarily 18 yards; it could be 20. Some experimentation would be needed of course. We would then change the rule so that you can only be offside in this final 18 yards of the pitch. This would prevent the current condensing of play in the centre of the field and stretch it out further.

In my view it would also help the assistant referee, whose task with regard to offside can be difficult, as they need to keep up with the flow of the game, consider if players are in an offside position when the ball is played, and then decide if any players that are in an offside position become involved in active play.

As I mentioned before, officiating errors in respect of offside are inevitable from an optical viewpoint, with the eyes and brain of a human being unable to process all of the necessary action to accurately call an offside decision accurately. The risk of errors increases by the foreshortening effect, which can happen when the distances between the attacking player, the defending players, and the assistant referee vary significantly. This is exacerbated if the assistant referee is not directly in line with the defender, and with the speed of the game today, this is virtually impossible.

The assistant referee has to judge if a player is level with an opponent at the moment the ball is kicked. The ball may be kicked from a short distance away or 40 yards away, and the linesman has to be able to see all of this with one set of eyes. It becomes even more difficult if an attacker and a defender are running in opposite directions. Sometimes it is just not possible to keep all necessary players in the field of vision at once.

This article will be continued with further details of the complexity of the offside rule that most of us don’t know about, and ideas for solutions to simplify the law for players and spectators alike, together with a call for video replays that could easily be introduced without any hold up to the game.

This Week in Hammer’s History

Picking through the scraps of the week 10 – 16 October in West Ham history.

This Week Hammers History Continuing from last week’s theme there was an unprecedented run of League Cup successes during this week in history with victories, sometimes convincing ones, over Stoke, Sunderland, Mansfield, Bournemouth and Villa (twice). It seems that if we avoid the first round ‘banana skin’ then we are on a roll in this competition; so set your expectations for the impending Chelsea clash in a few week’s time. The one League Cup defeat though was a poor one in the shape of a 1962 away defeat by 3 goals to 1 against Rotherham.

Looking through the results I am generally attracted by the high scoring games and there have been a number of these which we will look at in a little more detail.

At the start of the 1986/87 season expectations were high following the record third place place finish last time out. The season started encouragingly, stuttered a little with successive home defeats to Forest and Liverpool but then picked up again to put us on the fringes of the top 6. On 11 October 1986 Chelsea were the visitors at Upton Park; a side that represented the highs and lows from the 85/86 season including their final day defeat to Liverpool. With Devonshire and Martin absent, the Hammers had Paul Hilton in defence, a young Kevin Keen in the midfield and Billy Bonds back on the bench. It was a game of 3 penalties (including 2 that were quite debatable) and it was one of these that gave Chelsea a 1-0 lead. However, a McAvennie header and a Tonka Stewart special penalty put the home side back in front at half time. In the second half Chelsea grabbed two more goals to reclaim the lead before another Stewart penalty and two from Cottee earned a thrilling 5-3 victory.

Parkes, Stewart, Parris, Gale, Hilton, Keen, Ward, McAvennie (Bonds), Dickens, Cottee, Orr

By 1992 were sitting out the inaugural season of the Premier League following relegation from the First Division to the First Division. After a sluggish start we had started to build some momentum when we met Sunderland at home on 11 October. The game was something of a romp as goals from Keen, Morley, Martin Allen, Martin and Mark Robson (2) gave the watching 10,326 supporters an afternoon to remember with an imperious 6-0 victory. The win put West Ham back in the top 6 where they stayed for the rest of the season. By the middle of January we commenced a long run in second spot behind Newcastle until surrendering it to Portsmouth during the run-in only to nick it back at the death and secure automatic promotion on the final day of the season.

Miklosko, Breacker, Dicks, Potts, Martin, M Allen, Robson, Butler, Morely, C Allen, Keen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axlEOzKv41A

On 14 October 2001 new manager Glen Roeder took his floundering side to Ewood Park to take on Blackburn Rovers. In the previous match West Ham had conceded 5 without reply at Everton and so started the game looking to keep things tight at the back. The tactic worked for 18 minutes until 3 goals in 10 minutes ruined Roeder’s game plan although Michael Carrick managed to pull one back before half time. The introduction of Hayden Foxe and Grant McCann at the break gave the Hammers some added impetus and might easily have reduced the deficit further (including one shocking miss by Trevor Sinclair) until Tomas Repka was sent off (his second dismissal in 3 games) after picking up a second yellow card. Four more Blackburn goals ensued (including a Grant McCann own goal) to make it 7-1 and a humiliating afternoon for the Hammers; leaving them second from bottom in the Premier League. Despite this a post Christmas surge saw West Ham finish in a respectable 7th place.

Hislop, Schemmel, Soma, Dailly (Foxe), Repka, Hutchison, Sinclair, Carrick, Kanoute, Di Canio, Moncur (McCann)

For anyone into self-flagellation there are extended highlights of this match below:

Notable West Ham birthdays this week:

10 October Mark Ward 54
12 October Paul Goddard 57
13 October Scott Parker 36

The Penalty Area: What’s The Point?

Thinking outside the box. The existing rules on penalty awards put on the spot.

I’ll start with a question. Why do people refer to the penalty area as the penalty box? A box suggests to me a three-dimensional object, whereas the penalty area (or “18 yard box”) is just a set of lines which denote a rectangle measuring 18 yards by 44 yards or 792 square yards. This is about one-sixth of an acre which makes it sound bigger than it really is.

It’s a nonsensical area with an arbitrary size that has one main purpose. It is there so that any foul committed within it by the defending side, including intentional handball, results in the award of a penalty kick. My suggestion is that this is a ridiculous law and should be abolished immediately. I’m not petitioning for the abolition of the penalty kick itself, merely the reason for awarding it. The penalty area also has a supplementary purpose in that it exists, of course, as an arbitrary area in which the goalkeeper can handle the ball.

At the moment a foul could be committed inches inside the penalty area, and a penalty kick is awarded even if there is no way that the goal is threatened, or a goal scoring opportunity denied. The attacking player may be moving away from the goal, or the ball may be played by the defender’s hand without there being any real danger of a goal being scored. Nevertheless a penalty kick is awarded which effectively means an 85% chance of a goal being scored.

If exactly the same offence occurs inches outside the penalty area then a free kick is awarded. This means that the defending side can build a wall, and effectively means a less than 2% chance of a goal (unless of course you’ve got Dimitri Payet in your team!). At the speed of football today, it is difficult, nigh on impossible, for the officials to be certain whether or not the offence is inside or outside the area, but the end result of their decision makes an enormous difference to the outcome.

Compare that to the situation where a player is clean through on goal, say thirty yards out, and is brought down by a defender, thereby denying a clear goal scoring opportunity. This latter situation should, to make it a more sensible rule, result in the award of a penalty kick in my opinion, even though under the current rules it would just be a free kick.

So my proposal is that the penalty area is abolished, and a penalty kick is awarded whenever a clear goal scoring opportunity is denied, regardless of where it takes place on the pitch. We don’t need a penalty area for this and it would therefore become redundant.

And I’ll go a step further to discourage dissent from the side that have a penalty awarded against them. If anyone in the team shows dissent towards the officials, then not only does the penalty stand, but the penalty kick is taken without a goalkeeper in the goal, thus increasing the possibility of a goal to very close to 100%.

These changes will mean that penalties are only awarded for good reasons, and dissent will be eliminated at a stroke. It makes sense and must be introduced. But will it? Of course not, because the change is too radical. But should it? Of course it should.

But, I hear you say, what about knowing where keepers should be allowed to handle the ball? I would have a line all the way across the pitch 18 yards from goal, allowing the keeper to handle the ball anywhere within it. Those diehards amongst you can keep the penalty area where it is, if you must, for goalkeeper handling purposes. But it should no longer have anything to do with the award of penalty kicks.

My line, which would stretch right across the pitch, would also have nothing to do with the issuing of penalty kicks, but would be an instrumental line for a change in the ridiculous offside law (as it stands), which I will outline in a future article.

To be continued ……

Counting Sheep – 8 – The Letters M and N

Another combined team in the search for alphabetically themed West Ham teams.

This all began with me selecting teams of West Ham players whose surnames all started with the same letter. The aim was to help me drop off to sleep instead of the more traditional method of counting sheep.

So far I’ve picked seven teams, “B”, “C”, “D”, “F”, a combined “G” and “H”, a combined “J”, “K” and “L”, and “Vowels”. M comes next and it was easy to write down enough names to form a decent team. But thinking ahead to N I realised that I would have few options there, so once again I decided on a combined team. There are at least four stand-out captains in this side, although the one and only Sir Bobby would be the choice for this role.

My all-time West Ham “M” plus “N” Team in a 4-4-2 formation are:

Miklosko
McDowell
Martin
Moore
McCartney
Malcolm
Moncur
Noble
Nolan
McAvennie
Morley

So who have I left out this time? McKnight, McAllister and Mackleworth are three keepers who would have received very few votes when being compared to my selected custodian, Miklosko. Outfield players (M) were Mascherano, Morrison, Musgrove (perhaps the unluckiest to be omitted), Mullins, Moses, McAnuff, Maynard, MacDougall, Maiga, Margas, McGiven, McCarthy, McQueen, Mellor and Minto. The Ns included Neighbour, Neill, Nene, Newell and Nordtveit. Some very good players have not been included plus some who didn’t pull up any trees in a West Ham shirt.

Have I forgotten someone really good who is a must for the M/N team? And I can only remember one M/N manager. I’ll bet you don’t think of him as one of our most successful managers; Lou Macari.

Where Does It Go From Here?

The devil sent his advocate to keep me awake last night and this is what he told me.

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Deep down the football supporter is generally an optimistic creature even if this is concealed under a self preservation fear the worst, hope for the best cloak. Most West Ham fans with any mileage on the clock will have experienced disappointment, false dawns and exasperation on numerous occasions but even allowing for this only the most pessimistic would have predicted such a woeful start to the current season.

Notwithstanding the emotional and operational issues with the move from Upton Park to the new stadium; forgetting that, for the second season running, we were eliminated in Europa League qualification by an obscure Romanian side now anchored to the bottom of Group E; it is the fact that we sit third from bottom of the Premier League that is the primary concern. All else will soon enough be a part of history whereas (dare we say it) relegation would be a disaster; and the signs are not good so far. A benign set of opening fixtures having seen us concede more goals than any other team (only Stoke having a worse goal difference) and with no striker yet having found the net.

Men in sharp suits often remind us that “Past Performance is Not Necessarily Indicative of Future Results” and maybe we can take some comfort from that, but it will take some significant changes on the pitch to drag us out of the current rut. You cannot say, with any honesty, that we are playing well but not getting the results. In general we have got what we deserved; possibly even more when you consider the slightly fortunate Bournemouth victory. Leaking goals at one end and no strikers at the other can only end one way with the only crumb that there might be three teams worse than us.

On paper our squad looks reasonably strong. On the pitch it lacks balance and hasn’t been improved by the summer signings. There have been comments made before and after the last game that overseas players may need time to adjust to the Premier League. There may be some truth in this from the point of view of a player delivering maximum performance but it is a forlorn hope to expect a Morris Marina (or a Vauxhall Zaza) to suddenly turn into a Rolls Royce. It may have taken Bergkamp a while to start scoring regularly but he wasn’t playing like a donkey (that was Tony Adams) before it happened.

For some reason fans are often able to make better and quicker judgements about players than coaches. From the assorted duds that have shown up at West Ham each transfer window I don’t recall ever being surprised by an ugly duckling turning into a swan. On that basis I am happy to predict that none of Zaza, Tore and Calleri are potential Premier League players and accordingly see no benefit in playing them in preference to an untried youngster. My assertion is that they could be no worse.

So far in this season’s League games we have used 23 players in total with 20 different players in the starting line-up. Only Sunderland have used more players (25 and 22). Of the 77 starting berths 18 have been filled by new arrivals comprising Masuaku (5), Nordtveit (4), Zaza and Tore (3 each), Fletcher, Arbeloa and Ayew (1 each). With a fully available squad you would imagine only Ayew to be a probable starting candidate; in retrospect the outcome of the summer transfer business was very poor although maybe there was some good potential that was recruited at the same time.

Without new creativity or goal threat and other sides getting wise to how we play (i.e. the reliance on Payet and crosses) we have to find a way to adapt if performances are to be improved. There is some hope from returning players. We have missed Cresswell as an attacking option, Carroll is an upgrade to Zaza even though he is not the complete answer, Sakho is a better all-round option as a lone striker due to mobility and workrate (but has other issues), and Ayew looked good at Swansea. It is rumoured that Cresswell, Carroll and Sakho are all possibles for the next game at Crystal Palace.

Oddly I do not see the defence as a massive problem despite some stupid individual mistakes that we have witnessed this season. Don’t play players out of position all the time and provide better midfield cover, especially if the full-backs are expected to push forward, and it should be competent enough.

The centre of midfield is the bigger conundrum for me at present. On paper there are plenty of options competing for 3 places (assuming Payet and Antonio are the preferred wide players). Hopefully Obiang will now get a chance as the much needed defensive midfielder but after that it becomes difficult. The Noble – Kouyate partnership seems to be a large part of the problem and on current form neither deserves a place. For all his commitment Noble is too slow both in movement and thought and with a tendency to go sideways and backwards rather than forwards. Kouyate can be great for the occasional surging burst forward but it is not enough and his passing skills are very limited. It is the deficiencies in central midfield that dictate our low tempo, low penetration style and its resultant predictability; Dimitri Payet apart. To mix things up I would like to see Lanzini and Fernandes given the opportunity to show what they can do.

It is only 7 games in and not yet a crisis but swift and decisive action is required to stop the rot. Carrying on regardless with more of the same and hoping it will be better is a foolish and short-sighted strategy.