West Ham manager Slaven Bilic has been putting as positive a spin as is possible on the season that concludes tomorrow at Burnley, one of his favourite expressions is "and all that" followed closely by "blah blah". Well let's deal with the 'and all that' first, Mark Noble, Cheikou Kouyate, Pedro Obiang, Angelo Ogbonna, Andy Carroll, Diafra Sakho, Authur Masuaku, Sam Byram, Michail Antonio and Winston Reid have all needed operations during this calamitous first season at the London Stadium. Of course it could have been worse as relegation was a distinct possibility at one time, but all in all it has been a real stinker of a season and one that if replicated will see championship football at the London Stadium sooner rather than later!
The 'blah blah' really refers to recruitment, or lack of it more like! Most fans recognise the effort put in by the co-owners but even the two Davids will admit that they got it horribly wrong and cannot afford a repeat of last season's billy big bollock sound bites about how much money the club had to spend and the 'high profile' players being targeted, It is to be hoped that they keep there own counsel and announce deals once they have been done instead of speculating their arrival, west ham fans had too much of it and resented the fact that they felt they were being fed bull shit instead of the truth.
There will need to be a 'warehouse clearance ' of players this summer if the club is to move forward, and a few yards lopped off the London Stadium pitch! Blah blah and all that - Ed
Comments
perfect tone, Nev
couldn't put it better
Big clear out at the end of
Big clear out at the end of season - say goodbye to Calleri, Nordtveit, Snodgrass, Tore, Arbeloa, Feghouli, Fonte, Carroll (hate to admit) and Sakho. Last chance for Bilic too.
getting rid of
caller/arbeola/tore easy enough as they were loans Fonte they will keep nordtveit/Snodgrass/feghouli we will be lucky to get any decent money if any for them and Snodgrass on £60thousand cant see him leaving or another club paying that so prob stuck with him same goes for carroll although Newcastle may be tempted..sackho and his injury problem and attitude will make him a hard sell as well so it is going to be an interesting couple of months trying to trim the squad unless the board are brutal in what they do and take a hit or three to move the players on and improve the squad.
The very first thing we must
The very first thing we must do is get to the bottom of our transfere fiasco ,who does the buying ,who has the final say and most important our scouting system ,if you can call it that ,more like a couple of lads go on the piss for a week on a Thompson's holiday spot some pratt playing Sunday morning park football and straight on the dog to the Driscoll brothers .
I think we were dead lucky to escape goin south ,i cant think of another prem side with so many tossers in the squad
Reading between the lines of Bilic's talk
the Lacazette fiasco made us offer our 2nd and 3rd targets less, because we were holding out for the "marquee striker", and so they got snapped up by other teams and we were left to sign Little and Nothing. There's probably an ounce of truth in that. Still, whoever is in charge of scouting and contracting payed way over the mark for some (Ayew), and Bilic has to be saddled with Tore, Nordveidt and Feghouli -- I'm pretty sure they were his signings.
on the ayew front
read this article this morning if its true then lets get rid of him we overpaid and he has not really done anything to show he is better than championship players.
West Ham forward Andre Ayew, 27, could quit the Premier League club to rejoin former side Marseille, despite only signing from Swansea last summer - according to his father, Abedi Pele. (Le Parisien - in French)
Another Payet mcbikeman?
Another Payet mcbikeman? About to get shafted over barrel yet again? I have to say some of the players we bought we need to show some patience with. Ok calleri, tore and arbeloa easy to get shot of. I'd be more patient with the rest. Having said that as Nort and fegs were free any money we get from them could be considered good. It probably is time to see the end of sakho, and if we get at least 2 good strikers Carroll. Sakho and Carroll would be hardest to shift so maybe we could easily shift about 6. The rest of the squad should be filled with about 4 top quality players and promoted players from the youth. I'm surprised people want rid of fonte he has really started to settle since we went 3 at the back.
8 first team players
not available today, any team would have a problem with this.