westhamfans.org

Talk about click bait, those bastions of honesty the Daily Star are doing their upmost to usurp that other 'source of truth' (sic) The Sun with their "Declan Rice has already agreed personal terms of a five year deal with Chelsea" report. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story was the old lower end of Fleet Street modus operandi, one that was always particularly exploited by the previously mentioned 'publications' if that's what you want to call them, in addition to their equally vile Sunday counterparts.

Hammers' on off pursuit of James Tarkowski from Burnley now looks dead and buried, Burnley won't budge off their upper level £50 Million asking price and West Ham, quite rightly are unwilling, but are also unable, to match such a 'premium' valuation. While Tarkowski is indeed a top player Burnley's valuation is a bit top heavy, particularly in light of the current financial restrictions that have resulted owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, and there are other players available, so perhaps it was time to walk away.

Using the word 'positive' to describe someone who has just been confirmed as having a serious viral illness is a bit of a contradiction, there is nothing positive emerging from the London Stadium except for a pretty fine Carabao Cup performance against Hull City. Of course the backdrop to the convincing 5-1 victory was the sudden withdrawal of Issa Diop and Josh Cullen from the published starting line up, in addition manager David Moyes was forced to leave the Stadium as quickly as possible as were the players.

West Ham: Darren Randolph, Ben Johnson, Issa Diop, Fabian Balbuena, Josh Cullen, Ajibola Alese, Robert Snodgrass, Manuel Lanzini, Felipe Anderson, Andryi Yarmolenko, Sebastien Haller Subs: Nathan Trott, Harrison Ashby , Emmanuel Longelo, Conor Coventry, Xande Silva, Jarrod Bowen.
Hull: Long; Coyle, A Jones, McLoughlin, Fleming; Smallwod, C Jones, Batty; Mayer, Magennis, Scott. Subs: Ingram, Burke, Honeyman, Wilks, Lewis Potter, Emmanuel, Samuelsen

Aside from the 'click bait' offers to 'entice' James Tarkowski away from Burnley and other ludicrous supposed targets, there is an acceptance among fans that there will be very few new faces, if any, arriving at the club during the current transfer window, in fact most fans are just praying that Declan Rice doesn't get sold!

Perhaps the good weather that coincided with the gradual reduction of the dreaded Covid-19 pandemic gave supporters false hope that they would be able to attend Barclays Premier League matches soon, if not at full capacity at least 30%. Unfortunately those hopes have been dashed by the government's latest directive that has pushed the chance of attending games way past the beginning of the new year.

At the Org we pride ourselves on being as accurate as possible regarding events surrounding West Ham United, discarding the claret and blue spectacles is not always an easy task, however it has taken nearly 24 hours before it was possible to 'write up' yesterday's travesty of footballing justice that played itself out at the Emirates Stadium, and in front of millions of football fans around the World.

Arsenal: Leno, Bellerin, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney, Willian, Xhaka, Ceballos, Saka, Lacazette, Aubameyang. Subs: Macey, Luiz, Kolasinac, Elneny, Maitland-Niles, Pepe, Nketiah.
West Ham: Fabianski, Fredericks, Ogbonna, Diop, Cresswell, Rice, Fornals, Soucek, Masuaku, Bowen, Antonio. Subs: Randolph, Balbuena, Johnson, Lanzini, Yarmolenko, Anderson, Haller.

Word coming out of West Ham is that Josh Cullen may well replace club captain Mark Noble for this evening's fixture against Arsenal at the Emirates, Noble has a toe injury which prevented him from playing in the 3-0 victory over Charlton in the EFL cup and meant he missed training.

Noble has apparently recovered from the toe injury, but he is still 'feeling' a bit sore and David Moyes has intimated that he might do 'something different' for the Arsenal game in order to put last weekend's dreadful display in the 2-0 defeat by Newcastle firmly in the past.

With most fans hoping and praying that the rumoured take over bid for West Ham has more legs on it than Hammers' troubled defence, there is one acutely 'painful' reality that has to be faced, namely that all the billy big bollocks clap trap about moving to another higher level has failed to materialise since leaving the Boleyn Ground four years ago, in fact in most observers opinions the only 'other' level the club is potentially going is down.