You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you? There’s not been much fun around West Ham in this shambles of a season with us staring relegation in the face.
So from an unlikely source, our good friends from the West Midlands Police unwittingly provided the laughs.You’ve all no doubt seen it by now, how Midlands plod, desperately looking for evidence to back up their ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans travelling to play Aston Villa, turned to Google and AI for help - and ended up “discovering” a non-existent match involving our good selves supposedly with the Israeli club, which was pure fiction - it never happened - as a source to support their ban. Then they lied to the Government about it all - not the best course of action and the Chief Constable seems to be toast.
Two things. There’s clear proof never to believe what you see on the Internet as gospel. A previous employer of mine actually banned staff from using Google because it was unreliable.
Secondly, and this is a bit personal, but many of you may understand. I’ve travelled to West Ham matches in the WMP territory on many occasions and found then very unpleasant hosts. They never seemed to like football fans much. That’s how I found them, anyway. So to see them a laughing stock was very gratifying.
So let’s all laugh at the West Midlands plod, as we haven’t had much else to amuse us so far this season. Normally it’s Spurs, and their recent matches have been less than a happy experience for our neighbours’ fans who don’t seem to take kindly to a Danish version of David Moyes.
And we play them on Saturday. But with us searching desperately for quality players to sign in this window, and to have been linked with Connor Gallagher more than once over recent seasons, we find Spurs wrapping up that deal inside a few days. I doubt our interest even registered and we got a very painful reality check on just who will - or mainly, won’t - come anywhere near us with a barge poll.
It’s almost as if we don’t exist. But of course there’s a constant flurry of transfer trivia from the grifters and the disingenuous, over who we are about to sign and for how much. Some fans were on their toes this week insisting we only had a couple of days left to sign and launch a couple of proper central defenders into the Spurs game. The naivety sometimes, and the true state of where we are, is astounding.
I suppose what I’m not looking forward to is being ignored, being out of the loop as far as the top flight is concerned. No Match of the Day, matches shuffled around even more for EFL requirements and seeing our games reduced to highlight packages and very little MSM and TV coverage. To no longer be important.
It was great a couple of years ago watching us in Europe on TV every Thursday. Two years ago we were sixth and respected by our fellow competitors. Now we won’t even be in their division. We need change and very quickly.
We’ve signed a couple of strikers: Pablo Felipe for £21m, a player who cost his previous club £250,000 last summer - how on earth do you arrive at that mark-up? - and Valentin Castellanos for £29m, who scored the winner against QPR. I wish them both well, we all do, but generally I’ve been underwhelmed so far. Since then, nothing,
Three kids have gone out of loan, Fullkrug - now with a broken toe it seems, at AC Milan - and young Luis Guilherme for £15m to Sporting Lisbon. Others will have to go and quickly to fund any more new faces for Nuno Espirito Santo.
Mind you, he has finally got Sullivan to employ an addition to his backroom staff, 55 year-old former Spain international, Paco Jemez, who has managed Rayo Vallecano and has more than a decent reputation back home as a progressive coach. You sense he will be Nuno’s right and man, and, dare I say it, a likely candidate as manager if Nuno gets axed.
It could, and it’s hard to predict at our unpredictable club, the sign that the board are continuing to back their Portuguese boss.
I must admit to not handling this relegation stuff very well. It’s not like the old days when we were relegated in 1978 with the likes of Billy Bonds, Trevor Brooking, Alvin Martin, Frank Lampard, Alan Devonshire and Pop Robson in the squad. Nobody left, Brooking was even assured by England boss Ron Greenwood that his international place was safe, and we were promoted in 1981.
These days your squad is decimated, the Sky money dries up, the whole financial structure collapses and it can take years to get back into the top flight. It took Nottingham Forest 22 years to get back, Leicester - Premier League Champions mime years ago - are mid-table in the Championship while former Premier League sides only recently, Southampton, Blackburn, Norwich, Derby and Birmingham are all bottom half.
You get my drift. We will lose all our senior players and be left with the bulk of the current, and excellent Under 21s, plus whatever we can pick up in the market. You can see how depression can engulf you. And this from a club who were European champions two years ago... How did we managed to mess up so badly, Mr Sullivan?
It does look like another staff culling, more than a rebuild, like last summer when we got rid of 27 players - sold, loaned or freed - and signed eleven. We know there is deadwood around in abundance, but shifting it is the issue still.
There are some decent, honourable lads in our squad; Jarrod Bowen, Freddie Potts, Cry Summerville and Tomas Soucek who have spoken eloquently about our plight and their desire to put things right.
But the issue with Lucas Paqueta hasn’t helped. Alleged to have asked not to play against QPR and refusing all attempts by the club to offer him around to Premier League clubs rather than his stated desire to return to Brazil, cannot have helped squad unity.
So here we are with a mountain to climb. We need 22 more points from 17 games to even get close to safety, and from our last 41 league games since last January we’ve won only eight. And from those ten games over 46 days around Christmas and New Year, we’ve managed just four points.
I’d like to think we can still do it, but it’s a hell of a long shot now. We are uncompetitive on the pitch and in the transfer market - so something has to change and very quickly.
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