Category: Opinion

Play Fair: Taking A Hammer To The Rules of The Game

An introduction to the document produced by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) looking to make changes to game of football.

There are conflicting schools of thought when it comes to attempting to improve the game of football. One side of the argument suggests that the game is fine as it is. Many believe that it is already the best and most popular game in the world and should be left alone. An alternative view is that you cannot stand still and it is prudent to make changes from time to time when there is an opportunity to make improvements for players and spectators alike.

I come down on the side of the latter view, and believe it is necessary to make alterations to the Laws to move with changes in the way that the game is played. If you look back to the late 1950s at video footage of games played at that time, you will realise that it has changed since then, and some amendments are necessary to keep the game up to date. As a regular columnist on the best West Ham fanzine ever, Over Land and Sea, as a co-author of this blog, and in my book Goodbye Upton Park, Hello Stratford, I have frequently suggested changes that I believed would improve the game.

Within the book I made regular calls for the introduction of video technology, and devoted more than one chapter to this as it is something I am very much in favour of, as long as it is introduced in the right way and doesn’t alter the flow of the game. I am pleased to say that this is something that is now well on the way to becoming part and parcel of the professional game at the top level. In my prelude to our game against Stoke City in April 2015 I explained how I believed it should work, and future chapters on the topic reinforced my reasoning, especially resulting from some of the poor refereeing decisions that went against us in the 2015-16 season.

We had a batch of games in the second half of the season; away at Manchester United in the cup, away at Chelsea and Leicester in the league, and at home to Palace and Arsenal, all five of which resulted in draws. With a video assistant referee, all five would probably have resulted in victories, which would have seen progression into the semi-final of the cup, and eight more points in the league, which would have given us a Champions League place. Some will argue that these incorrect decisions balance themselves out over a season, but in reality they do not. I cannot recall a single instance where we benefitted from a contentious decision that later proved to be wrong in that season.

In my book I also unleashed another big bugbear of mine, the question of timekeeping, and timewasting. In a later article for Over Land and Sea, and also within the book after the home game had been played against West Brom on 29 November 2015, I went to town on this topic, and also re-watched the whole game on Sky with a stopwatch, and bemoaned the fact that less than 25 minutes of football was actually played in the second half of the game.

On 23 January 2016, after the game against Manchester City on that date, I wrote a chapter entitled Crime and Punishment. In this I pushed for changes in respect of the awarding of penalty kicks, questioned the need for having a penalty area, introduced my reservations about the offside law, questioned the concept of deliberate handball, and even made suggestions about increasing pitch sizes and goals by around 10% to allow for increases in sizes and performance of the human body since the original sizes were brought in 150 years ago.

The Laws of the game haven’t changed drastically in my lifetime (I’ve been following since 1958) but there have been some developments and amendments to the laws, and changes to rules of competitions. Some will say they have been beneficial, others will say that tinkering sometimes confuses the issue. So, for example, one of the most controversial laws in the game is the offside rule. This provokes a lot of debate, and was introduced initially to prevent “goal-hanging”. But quite how a player could be accused of “goal-hanging” when just inside his opponent’s half is beyond me. One change I would like to see is that a player can only be offside in the final eighteen yards of the pitch, but I reckon that change is a long way off. But it shouldn’t be.

The offside rule used to include “interfering with play” and there are a number of famous quotes surrounding this along the lines of “if he’s not interfering with play, or seeking to gain an advantage, then what is he doing on the pitch?” I haven’t quoted it exactly I’m sure, as there are contradicting views as to who first said it, but many attribute it to Bill Shankly. Nowadays they talk about first phase, second phase, active play etc. Anybody with any doubt as to the complexity of this rule should look up Law 11 in the Laws of the Game. It is a minefield, and almost impossible to explain.

Other changes in the last fifty years or so include the introduction of substitutes (many younger people will not remember a time when substitutes were not part of the game), the back pass rule, goalkeepers now being allowed to run with the ball without bouncing it (look up some old footage of the game to see this), the six second rule for keepers (but how often is this broken without being penalised?), three points for a win (it used to be two), and penalty shoot-outs. I am old enough to remember European ties ending all square and progression to the next round of the competition being decided by the toss of a coin. Many will believe that these changes have benefitted the game, although of course there are always detractors.

Recent innovations which are gaining momentum but still give rise to controversy in their initial trial stages include experimentation with video assistant referees, and changes to the sanctions for denial of obvious goalscoring opportunities. Now the International Football Association Board (IFAB), the independent guardians of the rules of the game, have issued a discussion document entitled “Play Fair”. I was looking forward to reading their proposals. The main aims are to develop the Laws to promote integrity and fairness, improve accessibility, and use technology to benefit the game. The three-pronged strategy within the document is a kind of five-year-plan to improve player behaviour and increase respect, increase playing time, and increase fairness and attractiveness. For each of these three areas they have three sub-divisions: “no law change needed – could be implemented immediately”, “ready for testing / experiments”, and “for discussion”

I will look at each part of the strategy in turn and consider its merits, and spread my writing over five articles on consecutive days, starting with this one. Many are sound ideas, (and even include areas that I have previously touched upon) that would improve the game in my opinion, but are they tackling all of the real issues that give rise to controversy? They don’t have any proposals for changes to the offside rule, the awarding of penalty kicks when the goal is not really being threatened, and they don’t really tackle the handball situation. Nevertheless some of their ideas are sound ones and I will describe them in some detail in following articles.

Will West Ham ever play in the Champions League?

Will we ever hear the “We Are Champion’s League” chant echo around the London Stadium?

Did you watch the Champions League final at the weekend between Real Madrid and Juventus? I thought it was an excellent game that was light years away from any of the domestic football we’ve seen this season. My first experience of seeing a European Cup Final was as a six year-old watching on black and white TV with my dad. I was enthralled seeing Real Madrid thrash Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 in the 1960 final. In those days the European Cup (which became the UEFA Champions League in the 1990s) was only for the champions of countries. Nowadays of course it is a mega highly branded competition where up to four teams can qualify from leading countries.

So all we need to do is finish in the top four of the Premier League and we are in. Sounds easy? Of course not. I am afraid that the Premier League is now so predictable and driven by money that I can easily forecast which clubs will be in contention for a top four finish next season. It will be simply a case of perm any four from this season’s top six teams. The two Manchester clubs, Liverpool, and the London trio of Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea are so far ahead of the rest in terms of revenue, I can see them dominating our domestic league for years to come.

What about Leicester in the season before last you may ask? Yes, they were the exception to the rule, an absolute freakish surprise, but I honestly can’t see anything like that happening again. If you look at the Deloitte table of the richest clubs, then there are ten Premier League clubs that have appeared in the Top 20 in Europe in the last couple of years. In addition to our big six then the nearest challengers in revenue terms are Newcastle, Everton, Leicester and ourselves. But when you consider that Tottenham (the sixth richest club in England) are so far behind Liverpool in fifth, and then see how far behind Tottenham we are, then we are just not in a position to compete financially. Of course the move to the London Stadium will help us in financial terms, but all it will do is slow down the rate at which the top clubs are pulling away, which grows bigger every year.

Apart from Leicester you have to go back to season 2004-05 to find anyone outside of the big six who managed to break into the top four, when Everton crept into fourth place. Newcastle themselves did so a couple of times prior to that season, and Leeds also did around the turn of the century, but although money was a factor in those days, the differential between the top clubs and those below them wasn’t so great then. Now the differences are so huge, and the gap is getting wider, that I cannot see it happening again in the foreseeable future.

Our bullish owners are hopeful that we can compete to join this elite club, and indeed we gave it a good go in our final season at Upton Park when we finished seventh, and could perhaps have finished even higher. Almost twenty years ago we achieved our highest ever placing in the Premier League when we finished fifth in 1997-98, and a little over ten years before that in the days when the top flight was called Division One, the boys of 1986 came so close when we finished third. But it was a different world then as teams such as Southampton, Forest, Watford, Ipswich, and Norwich all managed top four finishes in the 1980s.

In many ways the Premier League is more competitive than most with six teams regularly contesting to finish at the top. In the other top leagues such as Germany, France, Spain and Italy, there are perhaps two or three teams at the most who are likely to finish as champions. This is not too surprising as our top six clubs make up half of the top dozen richest clubs in the world. But this only means that we will find it harder to earn a place in the Champions League.

To break into the elite we would need to sign some top players. But the very best players only want to play in clubs competing in the Champions League, so even if we were prepared to pay top dollar for the best, I am afraid that they wouldn’t join us anyway. I cannot see a day when we will ever play in the Champions League. Next season the best we can possibly hope for is to be among a group of middle ranking clubs who will fight to finish in seventh place (as we did a year ago) in the Premier League. I’d love to be wrong and see us emulating Leicester of a year ago. But it won’t happen.

Will The Transfer Predators Be Circling West Ham?

Keeping the predators at bay, pesky buy-back clauses and goalkeepers have grabbed the attention in recent days.

Somewhere on a Facebook status you might well read that there are only 73 sleeps to the start of the Premier League programme. With the dust barely settled on the domestic season all attention is now firmly focused on player transfers.  TV revenue smoulders in the pockets of owners, club managers organise their recruitment wish lists and agents rub their hands in glee. Meanwhile supporters are assailed with a relentless stream of transfer speculation that stretches form the spectacular to the absurd.

In the space of just a few days, a pack of reliable journalists and unnamed sources have seen West Ham linked with a selection of talent that, if consummated, would leave little change out of a £100 million; a figure that while implausible pales into insignificance alongside the reported £300 million apiece sprees planned by each of the two Manchester clubs.

If past performance is repeated then the early days represent the phoney bidding war where we publicly announce unlikely bids for unrealistic targets; players who are already overwhelmed with alternative options from clubs who can offer European competition and are equipped with Five Star rather than B&B style training and recreation facilities.

One of the criticisms regularly thrown at the West Ham board is that they are closer to the ‘Two Bobs’ rather than the ‘Two (multi-millionaire) Daves’ who are only prpepared to invest the minimum for survival as the value of their investment escalates. Personally I feel this is a little unfair and an examination of net versus gross transfer spend is revealing. West Ham are close to the top of net spenders but become also-rans when gross spending is taken into account; a reflection that our squad is more Steptoe’s than Sotheby’s and has lacked, fro many years, any real saleable assets.  No-one wants to be thought of as a selling-club but it is a sign of success when others covet your star players.

If I was the Chairman I would be taking time-out from the arduous task of putting together bids in order to issue  Hands-Off Notices to potential predators that may have designs on the few players capable of operating at a higher level; the likes of Lanzini. Obiang, Reid and Antonio. There are others such as Cresswell and Ogbonna that I am in two minds about but listening to offers on anyone else would be quite acceptable and any joy in moving on Valencia, Ayew, Snodgrass and Feghouli could generate a little extra loose change for re-investment.

There has been limited speculation (as far as I have seen) regarding players leaving the London Stadium apart from a couple of clubs interested in the services of Fletcher (no surprise if he leaves) and a story that Brighton are preparing to test West Ham’s resolve (a phrase that is never heard outside football transfers) with an approach for Snodgrass. This would be one situation where my resolve would be about as strong as a butterfly with a broken heart.

The Buy Back Clause seems to have joined the Buy Out Clause as the must-have in modern day football contracts. It is allegedly a stumbling block in West Ham’s pursuit of Manchester City striker Kelechi Iheanacho. It has the whiff of something worse than Third Party Influence if you ask me but is deemed to be perfectly above board as far as the authorities are concerned. Now if we were able to include a Full Refund, Money Back Guarantee If Not Completely Satisfied Clause in our summer dealings then we might be getting somewhere.

Part of West Ham’s summer planning will allegedly include the recruitment of a new goalkeeper if reports are to be believed. Spending money on a keeper is always a tricky one. It is like having some extra cash to spend on your car and upgrading the safety equipment in preference to buying a sexy paint-job, monster sound system or alloy wheels. The last time we spent big money on a keeper, to sign Phil Parkes for a world record fee, it turned out to be something of a masterstroke that served the club magnificently for many years.  It could be money well spent.

A welcome return to the top flight of English football to Huddersfield Town, after a break of 55 years or so, to take on the mantle of representing Yorkshire following Hull City’s departure. To have gained promotion with a negative goal difference is quite a feat and it will be fascinating to see how manager David Wagner’s organisation and tactics fare in the Premier League.   They will almost certainly join Brighton as favourites for relegation.

Midweek Miscellany: The Hip Replacement Guy

The close season resembles an episode of Casualty as manager Bilic joins his players in the operating theatre.

Slaven Bilic

One joke that never fails to make me smile is the one about the two coolest dudes in the hospital being the Hip Replacement Guy and the Ultra-Sound Man.  Now that his team’s limp season has come to an end, our very own cool manager will be joining a host of players by going under the knife with Slaven opting for a hip replacement that is likely to keep him out of action for up to 6 weeks. We wish him a speedy and full recovery and hope that he will emerge far more flexible in every sense of the word at the end of his recuperation.

With no news to the contrary, the assumption has to be that Bilic will be staying in the West Ham hot seat, at least for the time being, to begin the final year of his current contract. It creates both an added incentive and pressure to get next season off to a flying start if he is to avoid dead-man walking status by the time the festive period comes around.

With Slaven temporarily out of action there must be potential implications for the allocation of war-chest funds during the upcoming transfer window. If we are to believe what we read, transfer decisions are collectively agreed by Bilic, transfer supremo Tony Henry and David Sullivan, in his role as de facto Director of Football and as the man signing the cheques from the Bank of Dave. With two shocking transfer windows behind them what could possibly go wrong?

The chatter (or is it the chtwitter) coming out of the club is that sights are set on three of four new signings to launch that leap to the much vaunted next level. The one name cropping up with great regularity in that sense is 32 year old Pablo Zabaleta: better than what we have?, yes; a signing for the future and a statement of ambition?, no! It is my over-riding fear that transfer focus will be on experienced but past-their-best individuals that offer little but to keep the club treading water.

A transfer rumour that cropped up today was a swap with Inter Milan that would see 30 year old Eder heading for London and 23 year old Arthur Masuaku going in the opposite direction. I sincerely hope that this one is from the made-up nonsense basket as neither part of that exchange holds any attraction. Masuaku looks just the sort of prospect that we need to keep despite the suspicion that he has contracted Rush Green syndrome (formerly known as Chadwell Heath syndrome) whereby a player has an irrational fear of leaving the treatment room.

I was relieved to hear that Jermaine Defoe had taken his ageing shooting boots to a more suitable retirement home on the south coast.  He is another that could make a reasonable short term difference but no more.  The motto: “good is the enemy of great” should be prominently displayed on the wall of the transfer control nerve centre as a reminder of our supposed ambition; right next to the one that says “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps!”

Midweek Miscellany: The Transfer Window Beckons

Time to forget about the football and concentrate on the more exiting matter of transfer speculation.

Owners and Manager

As the embers of the final week of Premier League action slowly die away we can soon move on in earnest to the more serious business of transfer speculation.  From what was once a few column inches in the Sunday newspapers many years ago has blossomed into a major internet industry where news-feeds are full of more and more tempting and ambiguous transfer headlines designed to seduce the excited reader to click on through.

The beauty of transfer speculation is that there is no pretence that it is anything other than fake news.  The more incredible or ridiculous the rumour the better, and the more it will be replicated and will spawn supplementary debate.  Whole football forums will go into meltdown berating owners and managers alike for the lack of ambition that pursuing this made up, imaginary target demonstrates.

The situation in the West Ham transfer war-room must be a strange one given that a large part of the deadwood that we have is made up of very recent purchases.   A clear-out and upgrade is essential if this seasons struggles are not to be repeated and while it would not be difficult to find better players it will be more a challenge to identify those who can become useful players in a side for the future.  My fear is that we will settle for those deemed good enough on past reputation rather than seeking out players to form individual parts of a grand design.  Without any particular defined style of play how on earth do you identify he players to fill it?

Meanwhile the owners will no doubt be giving it large and banding about names of exotic goal-machine targets who are usually well out of our current lower table league.  I’m sure that even our owners don’t believe such boasts sells season tickets; it merely serves to lower their credibility.  I don’t often agree with (or understand) much of what Jamie Carragher says but his comment that “average players will think ‘I could talk myself into a move to West Ham'” has the whiff of truth about it.   This also applies to players looking for that one final payday.  In my view signing any player who would be over 32 or 33 at the end of their contract should only happen in very exceptional circumstances.  It is not the future unless your horizon is only 12 months.

I read a report in the week that excitedly suggested West Ham would be looking forward to receiving a windfall payment based on their likely final league position.  It seems a bit of a stretch to term this a windfall when it is well known to all how the Premier League prize money is allocated.  I imagine that if anyone at the club had prepared financial forecasts at the start of the season they would have budgeted for several millions more than we will actually receive.

We will now finish somewhere between 11th and 16th  in the table; my bet would be as low as 14th or 15th.  With just shy of £2 million for each position that equates to some £12 to £14 million less than what might have reasonably been anticipated when we kicked off in August.  I have no knowledge whether player’s contracts have any clauses related to league position but I don’t expect our boys to be busting any guts up at Burnley at the weekend.

Scanning through the news-feeds during the week there were an equal number of contradicting headlines indicating that either ‘Wenger refuses to criticise West Ham’s performance’ or ‘Wenger rips into Hammer’s Holiday mood’.  Either way we are left with Arsenal’s remote pursuit of their customary Champion’s League place as the only almost interesting unresolved matter for the final weekend.  Leaving aside the delights of a boozy afternoon out with your mates I wonder how many will bother to turn out for Super Snoozeday?

Midweek Miscellany: End of Season Spoiler Alert

West Ham’s contribution to spoiling the final day of the season and other haphazard ramblings.

A disappointing consequence for TV executives of West Ham’s excellent victory against Tottenham (and Chelsea’s subsequent win over Middlesbrough) is that the Premier League title race will be all done and dusted well before the final day of the season.  There may be final day ‘drama’ to determine Champion’s League qualification or the last relegation place but these are hardly headline acts for the worldwide TV audience to look forward to or get excited about.

An early conclusion means there is no requirement for deploying split screen technology or broadcasting gratuitous images of an airborne helicopter awaiting instructions on whether to rush the trophy to Stamford Bridge or the KCOM Stadium.  It is the equivalent of the case in Line of Duty being solved in the penultimate week of its run (possibly exposing John Terry as Balaclava Man) while episode 6 then only follows AC12 as they complete the necessary paperwork.

I caught a online clip from an American sport’s show where they were bemoaning the fact that both the Premier League and Bundesliga were suffering from premature culmination.  It made me wonder whether if TV continues its dominance of football’s revenues that the marketing men will try to convince those who govern the game to introduce a title play-off phase, with perhaps a best of seven finale, to provide the season with an orgasmic money-spinning climax.

Another lost opportunity that I am convinced must be on the money-men’s radar are the sub-optimal Champion’s League advertising revenues from the far-east as a result of locally unfriendly kick-off times.   At the moment an 8pm kick off in London equals a 3 or 4am one in Beijing.  It can’t be long before the fools at UEFA switch these games to weekends giving them priority over domestic fixtures.  The average TV viewer in Asia would be much happier watching a world series between, say, Real Madrid and Manchester United than following a full league campaign over the course of a season where there is little interest in the majority of the protagonists.  It all sounds very stupid to the paying customer at the turnstiles but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

On a related note, the televised game between Liverpool and Southampton was so dull that I gave up watching at half time and started to scan through other available channels.  In doing so I was surprised to come across a Chinese Super League game with an English commentary.  It is interesting to see some of the famous names that are now plying their trade out East including our old friend Nikica Jelavic, currently on loan to Guizhou Hengfeng Zhicheng F.C.  The game I saw (a top four clash bewteen Shandong Luneng and Guangzhou R&F) had the usual expected sprinkling of Brazilians, plus the talents of Papsis Cisse and Graziano Pelle, and was a far more entertaining affair than that on display at Anfield.

I would predict that the Chinese League will have a far brighter future than that other home for washed up footballers (who are not even good enough to interest West Ham), the US Major League Soccer.

It’s almost that time of year where we can ponder which managers will lose their jobs at the end of the season before the respective war chests are handed out.  Most probably Watford will lead the annual sack race while the incumbents at West Ham, Stoke, Southampton and even Arsenal may be warily looking over their shoulder as the Chairman approaches.

Midweek Miscellany

Not so much miscellany more a rant about the absence of a coherent management structure at West Ham.

Now I know that we are supposed to hate everything and anything about Tottenham Hotspur but one thing that I can’t shake out of my head is that they probably have the best manager currently working in the Premier League. The sooner that he gets poached by a team more deserving of his talents the better as far as I am concerned.

The wild delusions of Spurs fans were always easy to ridicule in the past as a succession of managers came along, spent loads of cash on disappointing players, flattered to deceive only to be summarily dismissed by James Bond villain lookalike Daniel Levy. Then it all went wrong with the appointment of Mauricio Pochettino. Suddenly they had a man with a plan who was prepared to stick with it and expected his players to fit in or ship out. To make matters worse they also play a style of football that is entertaining to watch.

A year or two ago we might have believed that we were not far behind these junior north London neighbours and that with a new stadium and a step up investment we could be hot on their heels. After all, they are the team in the money league immediately above us and if there is to be a next level then that is where it needs to start. Sadly, as things stand, we are barely in the same league.

If you have watched Pochettino’s side play it is evident that they are extremely well drilled, exceptionally fit, full of pace and play a consistent style that allows players to come in and out without disruption. Within this they have flexibility to switch formations effectively; full backs that become wing backs without changing stride; and central midfield players that appear to drop effortlessly into central defence. Defensive duties is a collective effort by a unit of six players. So fit are their players that the attacking/ creative four players are not required to ‘track back’ as a matter of course although all will defend from the front.

Contrast all this with our own sorry performances this season and consider these questions. Do we have a consistent style of play to adhere to that all the players understand? Do you see any evidence that we are building something for the future? Why have we recruited so many players without pace? Why do our players appear to be so unfit and injury prone? Why have we failed to blood any young players and in certain cases preferred to rely on pointless loanees?

It is always going to take a team that has been relegated some years to become re-established in the top flight. Before this season I believed that we had made reasonable strides in the right direction even if the football, at times, lacked excitement. Most of the Championship level dead wood had been shipped out and we seemed to be heading in the right direction. Now it feels very much like back to square one with a group of players that need to be seriously upgraded if we are to avoid more seasons of struggle.

If there really is any ambition then a far more enlightened and visionary approach to managing the club is required; one that naturally recognises the need to survive but also has an eye on a future that doesn’t get reset with every change of manager. As things stand I don’t see any structure in place that oversees the clubs on-field development nor a manager that is able to build or energise a team. With a 60,000 seater stadium it is no longer feasible just to tread water year after year or we will end up just like Sunderland.

Midweek Miscellany

Criminal transfer dealings take the spotlight away from managerial speculation.

Tax ProbeNo Income Tax, No VAT

The big football story of the week so far are the dawn ‘raids’ on West Ham and Newcastle by the old ‘tax’ bill.  What we really know is limited to a number of short press releases that seem to suggest a joint operation with French authorities (take back control of our tax dodges) and relates to tax irregularities associated with transfer dealings, most probably involving Olympic Marseille with whom both Newcastle and West Ham have had dealings.  Reportedly, a number of people were arrested although the only name that I have seen mentioned is Newcastle managing director Lee Charnley, who was later released without charge.  There has been no indication as to whether the other arrests were in England or France.  It seems Chelsea were also spoken to (but not ‘raided’) which suggests that our cooperation may be more sinister than simply providing evidence.  A figure of £5 million has been mentioned which seems a rather small amount to warrant such a huge operation and raises the prospect that the story still has some way to go.  I know that many of us believe that our transfer dealings have been criminal but not for tax evasion reasons.  Cases like this are normally and historically very complex and will take years to conclude.  Any sanction forthcoming will likely only happen at the very point that we finally claim a Champion’s League spot.

A Week out of the Spotlight

The unexpected point last weekend and then the events of yesterday have momentarily taken the focus away from the future of West Ham manager Slaven Bilic.  It doesn’t take much to swing the pendulum of optimism back into positive territory but judging by the exuberant reaction to our clean sheet I was half expecting an open-top bus parade to celebrate stopping Lukaku from scoring (I wonder what route the bus will take in the future?).  No denying it was a good defensive performance and I guess the manager deserves some credit for finally learning from the mistakes of the previous 30 or so games (even if it was by accident).  All eyes on a repeat at the weekend.

Keepers and Dumpers

Adrian back in goal at the weekend instilled some much needed comfort and confidence but there remains a sense that an upgrade in the custodian department is a necessary priority.  Sorry to say, though, that the thought of a keeper who has been plying his trade in the Turkish league (Onur Kivrak) doesn’t thrill me.  Hopefully, it is not true and that also goes for most of the other players that I have seen linked with us so far; who are either past it or have failed miserably at their current club.  Like others my own persoanl bias tells me which rumours I want to believe and those that I don’t; to date I don’t (want to) believe any of them.

Nominative determinism

One of the names linked in a managerial capacity with the West Ham hot seat, should it become available, is Simone Inzaghi from Lazio.  If he did somehow end up at the London Stadium I would love him to bring Ciro Immobile with him.  An aptonym is when someone’s name fits their job perfectly; like Belgian defender Mark De Man, tennis player Margaret Court or Mr Bun the Baker.  Immobile the West Ham striker would just seem too good an opportunity to miss.

Midweek Miscellany

A sense of ambition, astute management and wise recruitment are the recipe for success.

Ambition, the Path to Success

For as long as I can remember there has been the charge of lack of ambition levelled at West Ham owners. Ambition, of course, may mean something very different to owners than it does to supporters. In fact, there may even be great diversity in what supporters want to see at the club; for every one who would welcome West Ham emulate Manchester City with foreign investment you may well find one who would see it as yet another nail in the coffin of tradition.

Although many will have reached their own conclusions, it is difficult to know with any certainty what the ambitions of the current owners are or how they would measure success. A run of success would bring them both personal glory and an increase the value of their investment but what (or how much) are they willing to risk in its pursuit? They must surely be aware that bottom half finishes is not going to keep a 60,000 seater stadium full for too many seasons.

Season on season survival, in the style of Stoke or West Bromwich Albion, does not look a viable or sustainable option any longer now that the goalposts have moved and the bar has been raised.  Vapid vision statements and talk of next levels is merely delusion unless the club actively plans for the future and addresses in a serious and timely manner ongoing issues such as player recruitment, youth development and below par training facilities.

Will He Stay or Will He Go?

I saw an online poll in the week which suggested that ‘Bilic In’ held a narrow lead over ‘Bilic Out’.  I have to say it surprises me that the manager continues to have such a high level of support.  Possibly there is an element of ‘the Board might appoint someone worse’ and, of course, that would be a great unknown and past performance is not selling point.

For me, it is not the poor results but the poor performances that are the problem. Focus on the results and there are always excuses to be found – we were never going to repeat the shocks of last year, we have been unlucky with injuries, the referee was against us, the new stadium is no longer intimidating etc. etc. Leaving this aside and looking at performances I see nothing to suggest a work in progress for the future that is just taking time to settle down. Almost everything on the playing side exudes an impression of chaos.

Bilic supporters suggest that the problems can be resolved by spending more to bring in better players. If only it were as simple as spending your way to success then the manager’s job could well be redundant. The measure of a good or great manager is in making the best use of the resources available, and that only usually occurs where there is a set plan with players recruited and coached to execute it. Such a set up is sadly absent at West Ham at the moment.

Situations Vacant: Players Wanted

Another week and several more past their best players have been linked with a summer move to West Ham. The latest over 30 to be added to the list, that includes Defoe, Zabaleta and Kompany, is the lovable John Terry. It may well be pure speculation but this is the type of signing that the press expect us to make.  At the opposite end of the spectrum completely the owners continue to make noises about unrealistic fantasy transfers that may as well include Messi and Ronaldo for all the likelihood there is of them being completed.

A club like ours has to be spot-on with its scouting and recruitment. If a target is likely to attract the attention of a top 6 club then he is not going to sign for us (especially if he asks to take a look at our training facilities first); if we are competing for an established player with the likes of Stoke and Burnley then he is unlikely to be good enough. The challenge is to find those hungry, young players not yet appearing on the radar. Even if we only get a few years out of them before they go on to bigger things (or stay if we are bigger ourselves by then) at least it generates more funds to invest.

Possibly an occasional older player can work out well (is Zlatan interested?) but it is a route we have followed many times in the past and I struggle to remember too many rip-roaring last payday successes – Stuart Pearson maybe!

Midweek Miscellany

A ramble through the West Ham undergrowth of narrow wins, manager appointments, owners and transfer speculation.

Midweek MiscellanySix Games To Go

Following the win at home to Swansea last weekend there was a clear sense of relief around the club at having stemmed the run of consecutive defeats and opened an eight point gap between ourselves and third bottom, Swansea.  There was a spring back in the step, all was well with the world again, super Slav had saved his job and relegation was someone else’s problem.

History goes some way to support this theory.  Since the Premier League was reduced to a 38 match season only once has a club with 36 points or more after 32 games played gone on to be relegated.  This happened in our last relegation season (2010/11) when Birmingham City sat comfortably in 14th place with 38 points at the same stage of the season, but contrived to accumulate only one further point from their remaining six games.  So it is a case of beware, relegation could still be the villain you think has been killed in the movie finale but who turns out to be not quite dead yet.

A Win and the Manager

The game against Swansea was the Hammers sixth league home win of the season, of which, five have been 1-0 wins.  Unlike a number of the earlier wins at least we were the better team on this occasion even if the result owed more to Swansea’s ineffectiveness than to our own excellence.

The media reaction to the win with regard to the manager’s position has been two-fold.  By and large, the pundits have been coming out to offer their support; smashing bloke, lots of passion, deserves to be given more time/ another transfer window etc, etc.  At the same time, however, there has been an ever increasing list of potential replacements banded about; Mancini, Benitez, Hughton, Wagner, Stam, Monk,  Carvalhal, Jokanovic and more to come I expect.  Players, as they always do, are publicly right behind the manager – right up until they subsequently support the new manager.  This one will clearly run and run and I guess only the Board have any real idea of what is likely to happen.

The Owners

I have seen West Ham described this week as still being a ‘work in progress’ but it is impossible to see from my viewpoint what plan or strategy there is in building a team; apart from assembling a Slow Motion XI there appears no to be no clear objectives .  Like the old joke about an Irishman giving directions, if you were ask “How do I get to have a great football team?” a quite reasonable reply would be “Well sir, I wouldn’t start from here!”

Modern football is all about the money.  In the money game our closest Premier League peers are Everton and Southampton with Tottenham the target to aim for if there is truly next level to be had out there somewhere.  As things stand we are some distance away from each of these teams both on and off the pitch.  Along with Newcastle we are quite probably the most accident prone and underachieving teams in English football.  Newcastle are proof that a big stadium is not a passport to success.  In truth this is not a new problem and amateurish muddling along has been as much part of the West Ham way as flamboyant football.

There has been some speculation this week that Messrs Gold and Sullivan might be looking for outside investment by selling part of their stake in the club.  I have no idea how much salt we should attribute to these particular  stories but if the intention is to seek investment without giving up control then any changes will be marginal.  Although, I believe that the current board can ultimately provide at least some greater stability only a Manchester City or Chelsea style sale can bring viable talk of next levels.

Transfers

Despite the season having six weeks to run, transfer speculation is picking up apace.  Even though I know that most rumours are there to fill up column inches or to attract click-throughs I can’t help myself getting irritated at the number of old players being linked with a move to West Ham.   A team doesn’t build for the future with 30+ year olds even if there is the occasional success story out there.  Sure, there are some very good players out there over 30 but it remains an extremely short-sighted strategy.  Let it not be true.