Just another week at the circus

For one fleeting moment, we got our club back. Callum Wilson smashes home the winner at Spurs and all is right in the world.

An amazing moment for long-suffering away fans. A triumph at the most unlikely and most agreeable place possible. Yes, it’s happened again.


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The amazing high spot of a chaotic weekend. Where away from Three Point Lane, everything that is wrong with our club and the reason so many are campaigning for change at the top, was exposed in all its gory detail for the world to see.

But just for those last few minutes in a delirious away enclosure, it felt like the good old days when we won regularly and even sat in sixth place in a division most folk still fear we will be leaving any time soon for the delights maybe of Stockport, Stevenage and other even less glamorous places.

The sight of our side celebrating with their fans deep into stoppage time, when to be honest we are usually experiencing one of those regular late collapses, was unforgettable.

That mood should be bottled and sold at the London Stadium instead of that undrinkable Brewdog rubbish. Mind you, I bought wine in a carton at an away venue recently, so things could be worse.

But as the week unfolded, we are back to the same circus - the transfer variety, that Mark Noble once vowed we’d never see again. And that came after two damning reports in national newspapers that laid bare the ‘dysfunctional’ club accusation.

For some while, our disquiet at the Sullivan regime has been contained amongst ourselves, nobody outside of our own little world begins to understand why David Moyes “was driven out.” Anything else has been dismissed generally as entitled moaning.

But when the MSM get interested, and their number one writers start producing meaningful articles about our plight, everyone starts taking more notice. And that was the atmosphere of chaos that threatened to engulf our weekend... until Wilson struck from six inches to ignite civil war in north London.


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Lovely to see, maybe they should be careful what they wish for now they’ve got a Danish version of Moyes.

One article collated staff unrest at West Ham and the haemorrhaging of experienced administrators, then the claim that David Sullivan runs the club by email was followed by the an accusation that ‘full-time CEO’ Karren Brady is in the office only twice a week, presumably running the place by iPhone from Kensington.

None of this seems unsurprising to our club’s fans I suppose, but married with the inept showing on the pitch and our perilous league position, it was just the sort of stuff that the Daily Mail happily fill their pages with.

And coupled with all that, there was another article outlining issues at the training ground. The ostracising of James Ward-Prowse - was it really after calling the boss baldie? - complaints about training and tactical issues, and the lack of coaching staff.

All pretty much in the West Ham public domain, but once again, coupled with the league position it all becomes of interest to MSM.

And of course there was another of those annoying social media outlets who crack on they know everything, who claimed there were board members who don’t belief we can escape the drop. The amount of leaks at our club would put Downing Street to shame.


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So here we are again in an erratic transfer window with the club seemingly knocking out Lucas Paqueta for as much as they can grab and virtually no action on defenders signing for a fortnight.

And to no surprise to anyone, friction between owner and coach over new signings. Nuno Espirito Santo is moaning that the board are taking too long, so the usual grifting mouthpieces are briefed to say that it’s really Nuno dragging his feet. Seems such a lovely atmosphere to work in, doesn’t it? Only at West Ham, eh!

Paraphrased, it looks like Sullivan and his trusted agent mates are in sharp contrast to Nuno and his own super agent Jorge Mendes. To absolutely nobody’s surprise.

And now we seemingly have another of those Sullivan specials. It didn’t take long, did it? An unknown, inexperienced 22 year-old winger from Venezuela, for about £700,000 on a six-month loan with an option to buy.

Now of course I wish Keiber Lamadrid every success, but to suggest he is unknown is nonsense. He would without doubt have been scouted by a host of Spanish clubs who miss very little in South America. And he’s still not playing in Europe.

So we step in and sign him for the Under 21 development squad while it looks like, we are letting the excellent Josh Ajala walk away at the end of his contract in the summer. Shades of Divine Mubama here.

We don’t seem to be able to conclude a new contract with one of our own, a goal scoring winger. I do hope we are not starting to lose members of the most outstanding youth squads in years.


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Now this may well be a more complicated deal than I realise, I’m sure agents and even family members could be involved in all this. It seems this has been going on for a while and this whole scenario is agent-led. To no-one’s surprise. But we still look like losing a talented natural goal scorer.

So the transfer window state of play, if we sell Paqueta and lose Ajala, sees ten players either loaned out or sold bringing the wage bill down nicely. And so far there’s two first teamers signed and the kid from Venezuela. Been here before, haven’t we?

Oh, and Wilson - who had been negotiating a contract termination a week ago - now finds himself wanted desperately until the end of the season. Bet he didn’t expect that.

Now we move towards yet another must-win match; the visit of a rejuvenated Sunderland to Stratford. The team that on the first day of the season stunned everyone and started the process that ended with Graham Potter being axed.

They showed us that we were lacking in pace, intensity, running power and desire. And Potter had famously not read the room by playing Freddie Potts throughout the close season and then dropping him 24 hours before the season’s opener. Any brownie points Potter had disappeared.

Are we capable of three wins on the bounce for the first time since November 2023? We will soon find out.

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