A week can be a long time in politics, a couple of minutes can be a life time in football, and so a week that began with so much promise for West Ham United has unravelled spectacularly. Recent refereeing decisions and then the Sakho saga followed by defeat against Manchester United in the FA Cup replay and then compounded by the media witch hunt that once again got it's claws in to the Olympic Stadium award. All in all a pretty disastrous fall from the heady heights of expectation, but maybe this reality check will stand the team in good stead for the future. Serious lessons will have been learned, and a desire to right certain wrongs may well bring about a positive reaction from the squad, however one thing that is for sure is Slaven Billic will be keen to add quality to his team as well as moving on certain players, you might as well go to top5onlinecasino.ca and spin a wheel to win, you will probably have the same amount of chance to be correct as you would have in predicting Hammers starting line up for next season, particularly in the striking department. Diafra Sakho, Enner Valencia, Emmanuel Emineke and possibly Andy Carroll will all have gone, Bilic has his own ideas as to which players he would like, but David Sullivan will be the man who makes or breaks the deals, after all he hasn't done too badly since the shackles have been removed from him in the recruitment process. Either way, expect to see plenty of new faces when the team first run out in front of a packed new stadium, that is assuming the Stadium hasn't been clawed back by the hearnites! - Ed
Comments
I agree there are questions
I agree there are questions about Valencia and if Sakho wants out then off with him but i sense a hint of panic in your post Nev ,two things happened, firstly its taken L V G nearly a year to come up with a performance remotely comparable to the performaces of past manua teams ,the bad news is it was on our watch ,secondly,a few days earlier Carroll manedged to get a hat trick that lets face it will proberble never happen again ,and we all thought. Thank god ,our problems with him are over ,he will now go on to be a top premiership striker and get bundles of goals for us where ,in reality the game he plays is fadding fast in the modern game ,on m&m i still believe he will come good,he may not cover as much ground as Carroll but his time will come ,,lets give Liecster a dose of reality on sunday ,think of it like this ,with Mark Noble we save a fortune on strecher bearers, and injury time could be a thing of the past ,when they go down some one gives a signal and Mark just Hoover's them up
Valencia
After watching Enner struggles this season even with the "adjustment" period, I have come to the conclusion that he is Maiga in disguise and we have bought him back after some surgery and a new identity, if we are to progress and I really believe we will lets go for the top notch forwards and buy big,we have the stadium hopefully be in Europe and can attract the best Cavani ,PSG, etc
Definitely needs to be
Definitely needs to be changes, all teams evolve and with the quality of the players in the squad we're actually going to get some half decent coin for the ones we sell, maybe not what we paid but neither are we likely to be paid peanuts. Add to the fact ad& G have already outlined the money available 35 mill, then we should do ok. I trust Slav has some good targets in mind so we can be assured that over the hill players ala Sam will not be on the shopping list. I expect the Sakho issue to blow away in the next couple of weeks as it proves to be a nothing story and the thick and fast run of games ahead should give us a firm idea as to how AC copes with a hectic schedule and confirm or right off any future injury concerns. Valencia and M &M will leave and we will hopefully add a bit more quality in defence.Not too much wrong with the squad which is good so we should be capable of building on what has been a very good season for us.
Best players right now:
Payet, Lanzini, Antonio (still has much to learn, though), Ogbonna, Cresswell. Need a striker who will score on a regular basis. Need at least cover at RB. And competition across every position. It will take an enormous effort for us to do better next season. The competition will be that much harder.
No Kouyate in that list??
No Kouyate in that list??
Best player right now?
I must need glasses or something, Mark Noble is our best player this season. Maybe I'm bias.
I felt Nobes had a poor game in the cup replay.
In some previous matches he's made killer passes, one-two with Payet, scored a goal or two and fired some wicked shots from outside the box. I thought he was pretty anonymous in the replay, and embarrassed himself and us with that balloon shot from Payet's corner near the end of time. I'm a great fan, but since his snub by Hodgson he has more or less proved Hodgson right, in my opinion.
Nobes
Yeah I can see your point there Ashes, in fact I was thinking that today against Leicester, seeing that tosser in the stands and Mark having an average game thinking
"I was right everyone "
I believe we will see
I believe we will see Samuelson knock on the door of the first team next term and if he can fit in would save us a small fortune and fill the role that Valencia plays in. We do need cover at RB for sure and we need a goal poacher in the Tony Cottee mould, like m2c I think the Sakho scenario will peter out, regards the OS haters gonna hate but just because the details have been made public it changes nothing and deal done but I expect a lot of our opponents next season to play against with a right hump. We paid the PL £5.5m in a fine for something declared not illegal, ended up with paying Sheffield United £20m compensation for their ineptitude in going down. It has taken a long while for us to bounce back and the club is still being pilloried from many sides! Next season will be a big one for us and I really hope Slav and the backroom staff take the positives and iron out the neutral and dispense with the negatives of this season and carry them forward.
well said, plaistow
well said!
I was having a look at the
I was having a look at the stadium via west ham web site and it seems to have the same type of structural canter lever over hang as Newcastle ,i realy. Hope not most annoying in the bright sunshine with its shadow cast over the pitch