What a week that was. The good, the bad and the ugly, from delirium to despair. Just 14 minutes outside the bottom three and an FA Cup quarter final with dirty Leeds on the horizon. Those of a certain age know, we certainly owe them one.
And it’s not going to get any easier, this roller coaster has a long way to run. The bad bit and despair may well be the injury to Cry Summerville, whose seven goals in ten games has given us hope of avoiding the drop and even a hint of Wembley. For those of you who may have forgotten, it’s just off the North Circular, or Etihad South as some of my more annoying ‘friends in the north’ insist on calling it.But let’s get the humour out of the way before our problems. Loosely under the heading ‘lets all laugh at Spurs’ we have that great (former) member of the big six trying really hard to get relegated. Their ability to chose managers is even far worse than by our board.
And they can’t even sack one properly, which has seen that amazing orator Jamie O’Hara reduced to permanent meltdown on Sky and Talksport. It’s worth a watch.
For some reason he was expecting Igor Tudor to get the tin tack at the crack of dawn Wednesday after the hilarious mauling by Atletico Madrid, much of the nonsense involving the young ‘keeper Antonin Kinsky—yes, the very one we tried to sign in January.
It was their sixth straight defeat—seemingly the worst run in their history--and after chief executive Vinai Venkatesham was filmed by Sky arriving at the training ground, the decision for him to stay for a while was taken. To everyone’s surprise. Mind you, every West Ham fan I know wants the Croatian given another four games, he clearly deserves more time!
The fact that we could win the FA Cup, qualify for Europe and see Spurs relegated in our place is taking it a bit far, but here’s hoping. Right, less of this frivolity, on to our issues.
The most pressing is Summerville’s torn calf, around which the usual rumour mill had him out for six weeks, two months or the rest of the season. It’s easy in hindsight to say he should not have played against Brentford to avoid this situation.
But he was only brought on at the break with Adama Traore his usual uninspiring self. “Jimmy” was injured in extra time and by then we had used all our substitutes. Playing with ten men against a Brentford side battering away at us with their long throws and ‘chaos’ corners was not an option. Just stay out there for nuisance value.
Serious observers reckon it could be up to a month out with a comeback for the Cup quarter final against his old club Leeds over the Easter weekend. He’ll likely only miss two league games, Manchester City and Aston Villa, followed by the international break when he had been tipped for a Dutch call-up.
The ‘good’ is those two successes, the priceless, nerve shredding win at Fulham, followed by the enthralling Cup victory over a virtual full-strength Brentford, where we witnessed another giant step in the transformation of our squad into something like the West Ham we want to see.
The win at Fulham was crucial and a really tough victory, against the odds as Jarrod Bowen suggested, with ‘everything thrown at us’ including almost ten minutes of injury time. Those 14 minutes out of the bottom three came with Summerville’s winner, and ended when Nottingham Forest equalised at the Etihad. Let’s hope Manchester City are as generous on Saturday.
The game was a tough watch, but we survived the late aerial barrage. Delirium amongst our away faithful and no doubt every West Ham fan watching on TV was an understatement. Then came the last 16 tie in the Cup against Brentford, who are a sort of Poundshop Arsenal with all their set-piece routines. But we stood up to it all, on-loan Axel Disasi a colossus and inspiration out there.
Jarrod Bowen scored twice and reached ten goals for the campaign, the fifth season in succession he has reached double figures, something last achieved by Tony Cottee in 1988. A real skipper’s performance.
Bowen reckoned we are a “real team” now and the confidence and momentum is building with every game. He’s not far wrong. Compared with the insipid, feeble displays under Graham Potter, being routinely thrown under the bus these days with stories of his time in charge, including what is alleged to be an issue with Bowen, where a meeting of senior players to ask who should be captain was held without Bowen knowing.
There’s no doubt this is a very different, more united squad than the one that was a shambles until Potter was relieved of his duties. Mind you, it has taken a while. Nuno Espirito Santo struggled alarmingly at times, there was talk of senior club officials briefing against him after the sort of time span that Tudor is suffering at Spurs.
Was he sulking without the coaches he wanted? Did he really want to be here? We’ll never know, but he has built patiently from the back, Dino Mavropanos is a different player these days, Mads Hermansen has put behind him a terribly shaky start to his West Ham career and Jean-Clair Todibo is looking a serious player at last.
This team, with Taty Castellanos and Pablo Felipe, when he’s fit, proving the ‘press’ and high energy we’ve been so lacking, are fighting as a unit. And in the middle there’s the little genius Matty Fernandes a thrilling, competitive, technically excellent, rising star.
What we have now is an obvious first team, with Nuno seeing the sense in utilising Tomas Soucek’s assets. A towering strength in both boxes.
The smiles are back, it smells like team spirit, and the ‘shadow’ squad are getting matches and involvement, what Nuno calls the reward for hard work all week that does not always get the minutes players desire. Let’s hope we are seeing the turning point.
Sadly, with us, there’s always the ugly bit, in the shape of a vast high-interest loan taken out by the board after that dreadful annual report. The board are more than lucky that the current change in fortune on the pitch is masking the incompetence off it.
But it’s the £126m five-year loan from Rights and Media Funding, with likely 10 per cent minimum interest, that sticks in the crawl. Now we’ve taken out such loans for years under David Sullivan’s tenure. It’s been suggested £485m over the 14 years, and that’s cost us £50m plus in interests, and that’s not including the £21m interest paid to Sullivan and the late David Gold for their loans to the club. It’s eye-watering stuff and no amount of being told by financial folk that this will all come out in the wash, will make me less anxious.
Rights and Media previously loaned vast amounts to Everton, who were almost bankrupt ahead of their latest takeover that has seen them progress and prosper with their new stadium.
And with some irony here, it seems the R and M postal address-they don’t employ any staff and are not FCA affiliated—turns out to be just up the road from me in Cheshire. It was a bit of a shock to take a couple of calls from mates taking the mickey and wanting to know if I knew this lot of old fashioned money-lenders.
I may have a similar address but I’m very much on the wrong side of the track from the high-end rich folk who populated the famed ‘golden triangle’ in Cheshire where a large amount of the top footballers live. I wish!
I’m sure you’ll all rather be contemplating a continuation of our league form and the potential of beating dirty Leeds—my generation will never see them any other way—and reaching an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley, our last visit there being the play-off final under Sam Allardyce.
The very fact that it’s our first FA Cup quarter final for ten seasons says more about us than we need to evaluate. In that time we have played just 22 FA Cup ties, going out of the competition three times each in the third, fourth and fifth rounds.
And of course it was Manchester United, after a replay, that ended our interest in the quarter-finals of 2015/16, that Dimitri Payet free-kick still engraved on our minds. Let’s hope it will be different this time.
* Like to share your thoughts on this article? Please visit the KUMB Forum to leave a comment.
* Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the highlighted author/s and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official policy or position of KUMB.com.
