Forum | General Discussion

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.

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??

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....

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.