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Championship players

Submitted by stuartb on Tue, 12/05/2015 - 19:49

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One of my main themes last season (before this website did a Burton) was the untapped brilliant potential to be found in the Championship. The pessimistic amongst you would always fire back with "unproven, never experienced the premier league, too risky". My argument always was that the risk between a young hungry British talent, on reasonable wages and a relatively low signing fee was the same or lower than a foreign older mercenary on higher wages also untested in the Premiership. The worse that could happen is that it didn't work, or conversely - that it did, and the player can be sold for more money later.

The chairmen at the start of this season seemed to buy into this and issued statements to the affect that we were going to build a younger squad with potential. I think this policy needs to continue - regardless of who the manager is next season. Indeed, it should be written into the manager's contract that this is what is going to happen and reinforce the West Ham tradition as an academy for young footballers. (Don't you feel pangs of jealousy when you see Southampton, Tottenham and now Aston Villa fielding their youngsters, and it working? I do.)

So anyway, last year I got Aaron Cresswell right (but he was a pretty obvious one if you saw Ipswich beat us 5-0 in the championship). I also got Jordan Rhodes, Tom Ince and Nathan Redmond wrong. Another one I think I did get right - but Sam never plays him - is Diego Poyet. I think he is outstanding. And with only 2 games to go this season and with Song, Noble and Nolan all struggling I just cannot understand what Poyet has done to not get a game. He is potentially better than all of them, seriously!

We already have Reece Burke and Reece Oxford coming through, and I hope that continues. Sad to see Lletget go. He will probably be a massive hit back in the States now. Stephen Hendrie (LB) is joining in the summer from Scotland and he looks good too.

This year, I would urge the Chairmen (or whoever it is buying our players nowadays) to look at the following urgently.
Sam Byram - RB from Leeds. Outstanding potential. Could be as good as Cresswell, and a must if Jenkinson leaves. (Compare his wages to Glenn Johnson!!)
Will Hughes - CAM from Derby. Just missed out on promotion. (We surely all agree we need a replacement for Nolan?)
Lewis Dunk _ CB from Brighton.
If Jamaal Lascelles (CB from Forest) wasn't already on loan from Newcastle I would have him in a instant.

Hello again!!!

Submitted by stuartb on Tue, 12/05/2015 - 13:34

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Where the hell did this website go!!???! A year ago I was banging on and on about how we had to sign a young left back from Ipswich called Cresswell and then BOOM...!! End of webpage.
I've just stumbled across the website whilst doing a Google search for something else. Anyway, I'm back and so seems the website, but it all looks very different.
Have I missed anything exciting?

Why are we finding it so hard to find another manager??

Submitted by The hammer down... on Tue, 12/05/2015 - 02:44

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Allardyce is going, latest reports are saying he knocked back the chance of signing a two year deal and thank God for that because the majority of fans have had enough of the lifeless fat man. But if the owners think letting the fat man go and getting McLaren is the way to go for a club that is looking to build, then quite frankly they have lost their bleeding minds. Klopp was always an unrealistic target, after years of building what he has at Dortmund he would most likely want to go to a club with a bit of money and where he isn't forced to sell a whole crop of his best players every year. Benitez is also unrealistic, the man is a top 4 manager and at this stage of his career I don't think he has the need or desire to take on another long term project like West Ham would be. Bielsa has gone off the boil in France, Moyes is happy in Spain and who on earth know what Bilic is thinking. He would probably take the job of offered to him but for the owners he seems like a last resort. Then there are reports linking us with Howe, no disrespect to the man but we should be looking for someone with a lot more experience than he has, a brand name manager of you will. Howe is not it, not yet at least. So we have been linked with those 6 managers, from one extreme to another and not confident about any. For a team on the up, with the Olympic stadium move coming, and the potential of playing Europa league football next season, should it be this difficult??

Apparently he's going?

ANTKB's picture
Submitted by ANTKB on Mon, 11/05/2015 - 23:13

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/west-ham/11598549/West-H...

So maybe it was true that when the board approached him at Christmas to offer him a 2 year deal he already had other offers? Thought he had nothing to lose and so told them to 'double' the wages or he's not interested? The problem seems to be that none of our preferred targets are interested so, mentioned this before, at odds of 6/1 is Old Harry on his way back as interim manager? I really wouldn't be surprised if this happened now, I bet a few of you will argue this one.......

Payback time!

Submitted by Hammers65 on Mon, 11/05/2015 - 21:08

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Just switched over to sky & i am enjoying watching shafted utd losing in the div 1 play off semis,6-3 now to swindon on aggregate!what with wigan also getting relegated to the same league.i do believe the words "payback" & "time" spring to mind!!! COYi....

What the hell has happened to this site ?

chubbyTURK's picture
Submitted by chubbyTURK on Mon, 11/05/2015 - 13:45

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It has as much life as Kevin Nolan on a bad day, obviously many have either gone to other sites I have too, but bloomin heck no one is making any effort I keep on trying, but why I do not know because no one else is coming up with anything. Maybe it could be to do with West Ham not exciting us at the moment or some of the old posters have simply not returned ? .
I personally have found the layout of this site quite different to the last one which has made it slightly less enjoyable to come back to though I am just happy that the site is back. I keep on looking for more input from posters thinking that maybe i do not understand the site and I am missing some extra pages but that is not the cast because people are simply not posting or it seems to me interested enough to post.
Maybe I am wrong sorry to moan, I just feel the site is not pulling me in as it did before.

Money is on him staying

Submitted by Betty Swollox on Mon, 11/05/2015 - 10:52

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So it looks like Allardyce is staying. It will be music to the ears of some and fill others with dread. After this week's abject performance against Villa, I almost envied the others in claret and blue, that they have a fresh new start and something to look forward to. Like our season we only turned up for one half and the one we were bad in featured Nolan. If you want a laugh btw, slow-mo Cleverly's goal and Nolan trying to track back. I asked the question of the pro-Allardyces to try and convince us that next year will be something to look forward to. All I got back was the usual rhetoric, don't know what your talking about blah blah blah, oh and my favourite, "Have you ever coached!?". A position held mainly by the media also this season, but funny how they have now stopped talking about it. Also funny that the owners didn't even nod towards Allardyce's amazing achievements this season at the awards dinner. I suppose anybody that thinks Allardyce shouldn't go is happy with the 3 wins against Sunderland, Hull and Burnley this year. Maybe Danny Murphy will break silence and tell us how fortunate we are.
So back to Villa, they're ground is about 3/4 full, apparently a hangover from the Lambert days. They vote with their feet there, rightly or wrongly and have forced a change. Lambert's record for the first 19 games this season was 21 points. According to us that should warrant a new 2 year contract. Which now looks likely for Allardyce. In the knowledge that Nolan is going to start every game how do things get better or is this as good as it gets? Someone on here said something like, "If Allardyce managed Chelsea he'd have Costa up front with Hazard behind". No he wouldn't he'd buy Nolan and stick Hazard on the bench. Another pearl of wisdom was that Nolan should become a coach. To coach what drinking and eating kebabs? " Kev, show us how you stick your are out again at corners". So another season with the mighty duo at the helm and big Andy making a 6-game cameo. Oh by the way Allardyce has asked for more money, so that's more than the £60K a week he already gets. So forget our enjoyment as fans, how the hell are we not going to get relegated? the fallacy that Allardyce GUARANTEES you Prem football is waning. Playing like this with 10 men every game, we're only heading one way.

the movies ( or tv shows )

Burkie 1's picture
Submitted by Burkie 1 on Sun, 10/05/2015 - 16:14

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in your opinion who is the most convincing mob criminal you've ever seen , who puts the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end ,movies or box sets , mine is pretty recent , De niro in American hustle , not your normal slick mafioso, but an aging balding geezer in tinted specs , the bit where they tried to con him with the phony Arab and all of a sudden he starts talking Arabic was brilliant , De niro has been in some crap in his time but the five minuets he was in this made up for everything

West Ham reminds me of a frustrated caged bird

chubbyTURK's picture
Submitted by chubbyTURK on Sun, 10/05/2015 - 01:29

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Watching that second half against Villa proves to me that we have so much potential, that our players can cut it in the premiership and when they are allowed to fly they can do it pretty well.
Unfortunately even now when the season has almost finished Big Sam still feels the need to play defensively, but at least he allowed our players to show what they are capable of in that second half and it almost paid off.
It is painfully obvious that we have some decent attacking players in the squad and I feel confident that if they were playing attacking football more regularly they will be tighter and better at it and God how I wish they could be unleashed against the lower teams and all teams at home games to attack with belief and want, and show us all what they can do.
I am not blind and can see that Sam Allardyces hands are somewhat tied because of Injuries (Though even if he had a fully fit squad would he change things that much ?) my belief is that West Ham have a bright future and simply need 3-4 top notch players to become a top 6 team but Nolan has to go possibly even Noble too maybe not next year for him though, a few difficult decisions have to be made if West Ham wish to step up but to make those decisions we have to play more positively so we can see who can cut it and who cannot, our biggest problem is lack of pace and a few players probably the ones I have mentioned may be the problem.
Downing too I am not sure about but he gets moved around like a rubiks cube if he is played as he was when we were playing well then he is a leader in attack though where that leader is now God knows.

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