Under The Hammers

I find it interesting to read fans views which say that the current performance of the team is the worst ever, this manager is the worst ever, we have the worst board ever, and the stadium is the sole reason for our current position. Even fans who have been supporting the club for many years claim to hold some of these views. I beg to differ.

Despite our exit from the three cup competitions in which we took part, which is certainly not satisfactory, we still sit in 13^th place in the Premier League at the turn of the year, roughly midway through the season. On the other hand we are just one win away from being in the top half of the table, but seven points clear of the relegation places. In our last ten seasons in the top tier our position on January 1 each season was as follows:

2015-16 (8), 2014-15 (6), 2013-14 (19), 2012-13 (12), 2010-11 (19), 2009-10 (17), 2008-09 (10), 2007-08 (9), 2006-07 (18), 2005-06 (10). Average of the last 10 = 13^th!

So Slaven Bilic is the worst manager ever? There are some short memories I believe. Where shall I start? Who remembers Macari, Roeder, Grant, Allardyce, Pardew, Zola? Even John Lyall, who is revered by many, and who took us to our best ever league position when we finished third in 1985-86, took us down twice.

This is the worst board ever? Really? Yes they need to learn to keep their mouths shut at times. I’d love to play cards with them – I reckon they reveal their hand too easily. But who remembers Brown (the Bond scheme debacle), or the Icelandics (who almost bankrupted us)? Yes there were some poor signings in the summer, and they must take their share of the blame for that, but was it all their doing? How much say does the manager have?

Some write that the stadium is to blame; if only we could go back to Upton Park they say. Look back at the statistics. Was the Boleyn Ground really a fortress? No it wasn’t. The board and many others believe it was the only chance of trying to move to the next level. It hasn’t happened, yet, but it might. But there is no going back now. We can’t continue to harp on about it, and hide behind it for some poor performances. Yes, sure, there are a few tourists; that will happen, there will always be a handful, but we haven’t got 20,000 people sitting down eating popcorn, or asking who the players are. In my opinion such a lot is out of proportion to reality.

Another theory I’ve heard bandied about is the size of the pitch. Well the pitch at the London Stadium is 105 metres x 68 metres, exactly meeting the standard that the Premier League want all clubs to have. More than half of them do. If the stadium doesn’t allow it then a smaller pitch is permissible. Upton Park was one of those examples. The pitch there was 68 metres wide too, but was just over 4 metres shorter in length than the London Stadium. Does size matter? Do the extra two metres in each half of the field really make a difference? When we played so well against Chelsea, did we reduce the pitch size?

In reality I believe there are a number of reasons for a season that, to date, is just an average one in the history of our football club. The summer transfer dealings didn’t improve the team as many hoped they would. The board haven’t succeeded in attracting the right players for us to move upwards. The manager doesn’t appear to have a clear strategy with the players at his disposal. The players have not performed as they did last season for whatever reason. We have had, not for the first time, more than our fair share of injuries to key players. We are in transition stadium-wise. Many other clubs found it hard at first, but they adapted and became used to new surroundings.

But let’s get it all into perspective. It is not the worst season ever. It is certainly not the best either. It is just another average season in the history of West Ham United Football Club. Our average finishing league position in the last fifty years in the top flight is around 12^th to 13^th. We are on course for another average finish. Of course the fans want better. I’m sure the board, the manager, and the players want better. I want better. This is my 59^th season of supporting the club. But as so many people eventually find out, that well-worn phrase, be careful what you wish for.

It may be that the season gets worse from here. If so, changes will have to be made. If it gets better then we (or at least some of us) will be happy for the time being. But whichever direction it does head in, we may not be the best, and we may not be the worst. We are West Ham. Usually, somewhere in the middle of the top tier. But that’s what supporting the club is all about. Perhaps it is the sheer unpredictability that we love. We never know what to expect from one season to another, from one game to another, and even from the first half to the second half of a game. Some will disagree but that’s how I see it!

Click Here to Read Part One of this Article

In the aftermath of the massively disappointing defeat at the hands of Manchester City on Friday night, social media went into overdrive, possibly exceeding what has gone before this season. I guess that the match being shown live on terrestrial television had something to do with it. Virtually no credit was given to our opponents who played some breathtaking stuff at times, just as Arsenal did a few weeks ago. Quite frankly after the first 25 minutes we could not live with them. But then once again, a soft penalty was awarded to a top team. How often does this happen? They are better than us anyway, there is no need to give them an unfair advantage! Yes, to some extent we capitulated in the second half, but I don’t believe it was lack of effort. We just have to accept that we are not good enough to compete with the best.

Once, in a training exercise in the work environment, we were asked to come out with one thing that we really liked about social media, and something that we didn’t like. I liked the fact it enabled individuals to express an opinion which could be seen instantly by many people, sometimes thousands of them. For the dislike I toyed between the anonymity that social media provided, which meant that individuals often make derogatory or rude comments about others that they wouldn’t make to their face, or alternatively, the inability of people as a whole to accept that others have a point of view that may differ from their own. I guess the latter is a fact of modern life that seems to be shared by so many who believe that their opinion must be right, and any other views are not acceptable. I found that much of this was in evidence on social media in the immediate aftermath of the game, and has even continued in the couple of days that have elapsed since then.

In my view (and I accept there may be alternative views!) the top 6 teams are now getting further away from the rest of the Premier League than ever before. The three London clubs, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham, in conjunction with the three north-western giants of the two Manchester clubs and Liverpool, have so much more money than the rest, despite the massive injection of TV cash that some thought might equalise the situation. Of course, many who disagree with this will point to last season when the “Big 6” didn’t occupy the top six places, and the title was in fact won by a rank outsider, Leicester. For me this was a complete one-off freak season that I cannot see being repeated.  And when you think about it, despite their indifferent seasons, all of the Big 6 finished in the top 10, despite the interlopers like Leicester, West Ham, Southampton and Stoke.

The Big 6 are showing an even greater domination of the Premier League this season, and I don’t think many would disagree that they will finish way ahead of the chasing pack. These are the same top six clubs that occupied the first six places in 2014-15. The season before, 2013-14, these six finished in the top 7, the other team to join the party were Everton. In 2012-13 we had the same situation, that is 6 out of 7 plus Everton. When we were relegated in 2010-11 it was the same top 6 plus Everton were seventh. In 2009-10 the Big 6 finished in the first seven, this time Villa crept in to the group and Everton were 8^th. Can you see the pattern here? The top six are consistently much too good for the others over the course of a season, although there are some short-term minor blips. Everton are the next team down in the pecking order.

After last season, the expectation of fans for this season went through the roof, and partly this may have been fuelled by the board, insisting that to compete with the very top clubs we needed to move into a bigger stadium, enabling us to significantly increase our income. This is probably true to some extent, although many will point to Leicester, whose ground capacity and revenue falls well short of our own when we were still at Upton Park, and despite this they still managed to come out on top.

For more than 20 years the accountancy firm Deloitte has produced revenue statistics of football clubs. It is released in February each year relating to the season most recently finished. Generally you can measure the league success of teams by their income, and in broad terms the income league table is not too dissimilar to the current Premier League table. The top six clubs mentioned previously are the top six in the income league table too, albeit in a slightly different order. In income terms we sit in tenth place which is close to our league position, too. The same is true of most clubs in the Premier League. The problem for lower teams is that the gap is getting wider, hence the reason to move to a larger stadium where possible, just to try to halt the growth in the income gap.

To be continued …..

The game began and what a bright start we made. As I had thought, the absence of Noble and Carroll meant that we would be moving the ball at pace, without too much reliance on long balls to our big striker, and trying to pick up knock downs. Now I am a fan of Carroll, but sometimes believe that when he is in the team we don’t vary our playing patterns sufficiently to pose a threat to the opposition.

Lanzini, Payet, Feghouli, and others were linking well with some incisive one touch passing at speed, and I really felt that this was going to be some game. And then came the moment after about a quarter of an hour which has been the subject of much debate since. Anyone reading this will know what happened, and probably around 99% of everyone I’ve read or heard agrees that the referee, Mike Dean, blundered badly, and in effect ruined the match from that point on. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a collective gasp in a stadium when he produced the red card.

The team were galvanised and played with great organisation, but it was always going to be a big ask to hold a team of the quality of Manchester United for 75 minutes. Reid and Ogbonna were splendid at the back, the magnificent Obiang had an imperious game in midfield (why do so many people overlook his great qualities and importance to the team?). Lanzini was having an excellent game too, and the rest of the team were playing their part.

We had one let off in the first half when our old friend Post came to the rescue (as he did three times in the Hull game), after Randolph had made a terrific strong arm save to keep the ball out at point blank range. Goal line technology proved just how close it was to crossing the line when I watched the game back on TV after returning home. It would have been a travesty if a goal had been scored, because from my position directly in line, Lingard (I think) seemed well offside when he hit the post, and I couldn’t understand why the linesman hadn’t raised his flag.

The introduction of Rashford and Mata in the second half gave the men from Manchester greater impetus, and as we tired, it was no great surprise when we eventually conceded a goal. Shortly before we fell behind, Lanzini put a great ball through to Antonio, but one on one with De Gea he managed to hit his legs. Mourinho described it as a great save after the game, but I felt it just hit him. Antonio had failed to connect with a header earlier, so we did have chances to score the first goal of the game. Had one of them gone in then it might have been a different story.

Post came to the rescue a second time when a shot slid under Randolph’s grasp, but their second goal killed the game off. From my position at the other end Ibrahimovic looked as if he might have been offside, and this was later confirmed when I saw the replay.

All in all the players can be proud of their performances, something which cannot be said of the match officials. Dean ruined a game of football for 55,000 people with his blunder, and for any watching on TV. There is no excuse for the linesman who blundered badly, too. Quite frankly they were inept throughout the match, and had no feel for what was happening. We always hope for consistency from referees and no two games can be compared exactly, but anyone who saw Ross Barkley’s horror tackle on Jordan Henderson recently, which Dean only thought worthy of a yellow card, can only shake their head in bewilderment in his treatment of Feghouli. Barkley’s potential leg-breaker provoked an explosive melee in the Liverpool v Everton game, whereas in our game, some United players were consoling Feghouli about the unjustness of his sending off.

Of course Jones played his part in the dismissal, arching his back and rolling over and over, but a minute later he was running around without the slightest limp. Some United players ran to the referee when the two players collided, but they always do that, don’t they?

Quite frankly the whole match was ruined by one person who thinks he is part of the entertainment. He is not. Scathing attacks on his performance have come from all quarters after the game. Garth Crooks on BBC, Alan Smith and Niall Quinn on Sky post-match, and other ex-referees such as Poll, Halsey and Webb all agreed it was a ruinous decision for the game. One that I found especially interesting was from Keith Hackett, who famously sent off Tony Gale in the FA Cup semi-final 25 years or so ago. Hackett, in his piece, admitted his major error in sending off Gale, and remarked that Dean should have thought longer over his decision.

My next letter of complaint is to Mike Riley, the referees supremo. I was disgusted by the ruination of my evening entertainment, and I will demand to know what he is going to do about the poor state of officialdom which falls under his control. Too many games are being spoiled by inept officials.

And it is about time that video replays were introduced to try to eradicate some of these gross errors. But that is for another article …

[Click Here for Part One of this Article]