As the season draws to a close, we tie up matters with a claret and blue clash involving the Brummie outfit, Aston Villa. As per Premier League tradition, all games kick off at the same time so it is a three o’clock start at the Boleyn for the mighty Irons.
Instead of my usual style of looking at the opposition, I am going to turn my attentions closer to home and use this preview as a chance to reflect on West Ham’s season and to try to work out where we are going as a club.Safety First
In many respects, this has been the season that needed to happen but it appears that our fan base has enjoyed it the least. The last five campaigns have seen us involved in successful and unsuccessful relegation battles, successful and unsuccessful promotion pushes and the last mid table finish saw us complete the season in Cardiff for a cup final.
This season, rather than go to the wire, has all but closed down around the end of January, where the home victory over Liverpool was not followed on as we went through a dip that saw us fail to see off poor opposition and saw a 0-4 scoreline become a worryingly trend. Despite the protests of the players and management, it has seemed like treading water since then and we have remained in 10th spot without getting any closer to Man Ciddy or any further away from Sp*rs for what seems like an eon.
The lack of progress has undoubtedly been hampered by the numerous injuries sustained and to key players in vital positions. Despite the club seemingly having more centre backs than a supermodel has thrown up hot dinners, we have amazingly had to play Jonathon Spector, Lucas Neill and of course, an academy rookie in the middle of defence this campaign. It was no co-incidence that the run of our best results, certainly in terms of goals against came when Anton and Upson were able to get a decent number of games alongside each other.
We have also suffered injuries to many of our creative players, no-one could deny that we would be a much more threatening proposition with the likes of Craig Bellamy (our best player for many of the few games he featured in, Reading in particular), Kieron Dyer, Matty Etherington and the return of (the real) Dean Ashton, Faubert and Zamora have seen us have more zip and purpose about our game in the last couple of weeks.
I understand that none of those observations are particularly revolutionary and our manager mentions the bare bones problems that we have at any given opportunity, but it is impossible to take any view of our season without a look the dreaded injury list.
A style reviled
The fashion this season has been to moan about the side’s style or more specifically, our lack of it. The feeling is that we have gone too defensive and the strategy of playing a lone striker was derided by all, prompting three pronged attack chants and cries for Paolo Di Canio. There was also the occasional claim of long ball but I honestly don’t believe we resorted to that very often.
This cautious approach was put down the nature of our manager and whilst the team may bear similarities to his old Charlton side, it also bears lots of similarities to most of the sides that finished above us in the league table. Outside of the top four, most teams set out to avoid defeat by packing the midfield and waiting for the other side to make a mistake.
We have seen the likes of Portsmouth and Manchester City play like that against us in the league and even Ferguson’s United with his array of attacking talent has gone with a 4-5-1 in Europe, particularly against quality opposition (see Roma and Barcelona as examples). Greece in the Euro 2004 and Glasgow Rangers route to the UEFA final this season have also been built on those tenets and it is unrealistic for us supporters to expect to see moralistic good football make any inroads into the current Premier League where the game of catenaccio (and mouse) is the norm.
However, West Ham do seem to suffer a touch of the Pete Dougherty’s, as possession is a problem. Our shortcoming seems to be when we are up against poor opponents, when we should be able to dominate both in respect of time on the ball and territorially and this needs to be worked on. The midfield is crying out for a playmaker and the emphasis on the training ground needs to switch from defensive stability to creative flair, though as per every criticism that is levelled at the class of 2007/08, we will improve when the squad gets fit.
Hammer of the Year
The KUMB awards and the club’s Hammer of the Year award seem as good excuse to get down to the brass tacks of player assessment. The fact that it needs to be a contribution towards a whole season makes the competition a little more straightforward as if it was the best performing Hammer in the five minutes / five games / quarter of the season that they actually made it onto the pitch, the whole thing would require a little thought.
Of the whole squad, only four players have started more than 30 games this season, Lucas Neill, Hayden Mullins and the two constant starters, Robert Green and George McCartney and in the absence of anyone having anywhere near the impact that Carlos Tevez had last year in a limited number of games, I think the award needs to go to one of that group.
It is easy to discount Neill as he has had a relatively poor campaign, often looking off the pace and falling short of last season’s standards. Mullins is also out of the running as he simply doesn’t contribute enough for me to warrant consideration and has only featured so often because of Parker and Noble’s injuries.
I think that both Green and McCartney have had decent seasons, but the fact that George is even a candidate for player of the season captures perfectly the zeitgeist of the year gone by.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy to have George in our line up and admire his professionalism as a defensive player, his work rate up and down the line, his ability to throw the ball and his goal against Sunderland was a peach. However, that many of us have gone for a quiet, unassuming, professional as Hammer of the Year speaks volumes about what this season has been about and there is a certain irony in a bunch of supporters baying for more excitement and then plumping for the most solid player in the team when the vote needs to be cast.
Other Hammers have had good seasons, Matthew Upson being the obvious one (who may just make 30 starts on Sunday), Ashton and Ferdinand have been our best players on the park on many occasions (though have arguably been our worst now and again as well) and the likes of Solano and Ljungberg have made contributions.
The youngsters have shown much more promise in the last few weeks, the buzz around Sears coming on against Blackburn was one of the few highlights of the campaign and although Tomkins has had a hard time having been thrown in at the deep end, I think the experience has served him well to go on to be a big success in the future.
I’m going to plump for Nobes as my young player of the year as he has had more games than the other two candidates and nothing Sears or Tomkins did can match his contribution in the win against Liverpool. I’m going to go for Roberto Verdi as my player of the season, simply by virtue of him having been responsible for more points that George and for his penalty saving endeavours and I believe that he is the one player that we could not afford to lose at the moment.
Summer Schedule
Having a quick scratch of my crystal balls, I can see that slow and steady progress will remain a theme, with Curbs as recently as last week citing a top 8 finish for next season. We are all expecting to see some trimming of the squad and cutting of the wage bill, though I think it is unrealistic to think that we can simply get rid of the players that we do not use as they are unlikely to be the ones that anyone wants, or wants to pay money for. With the Ashton to United and Anton to Sp*rs rumours starting up already, it is likely to be the usual summer of speculation, though I am sure we will lose at least one first teamer.
It will be interesting to see how West Ham looks as a Nani state, no doubt our new technical director will want to do a little business to introduce himself and hopefully the fans request for a new Paolo will be met (failing that, I’d settle for a Baggio)
Otherwise, all that we fans can do is to work on our tans, catch up with our loved ones (and in my case the DIY I’ve been putting off since August), have a peek at Euro 2008 and of course, renew those season tickets. As I head out of the revolving doors here at KUMB towers for my summer break, I’ll have us down for a 2-1 win on Sunday, Villa giving up at half time as we learn that Everton are comfortably beating Newcastle.
Enjoy the game.
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