West Ham United Blog

West Ham v Derby County Preview - time for Curbs to unleash Sears

Well if ever a game had 3 points written all over it, this was it.  More importantly it gives us a great opportunity to put clear daylight between ourselves and Spurs who I don't think will get 3 points away to Wigan.  Not only should we get 3 points, it's also the perfect game for us to unleash Freddie Sears properly and see if the lad can influence a match from the start. 

The injury news is that Freddie, Noble and Skippy are back and some talk on the forum suggests Faubert is in the frame as well.  He is the only one who might be a risk start, having been out for so long.  With this in mind, here is my starting team;

Green

Macca - Tomins - Upson - Skippy

Ljungberg - Parker - Collison - Noble

Ashton  - Sears

Bench: Walker, Zamora, LBM, Speccy and Pants.

Only contentious thing would be Noble on the right, but he has done a job for us there before.  Seriously, I want to see the players up for this and to get a convincing result, because we have been far from convincing lately.

I'm taking the home win as read so my bet is to back Freddie Sears at 6/5 to score at anytime in the match.  Go on, take a free tenner from Coral for the bet and make the day an even better one, up the Hammers...

Sir Alan fires a Hammer - and gets it wrong

For those of you who are as obsessed by the Apprentice as I am, you will be as shocked as I am by tonight's decision to fire Simon Smith aka Skerrit on West Ham forums.  With his claret and blue ties, for those of you who have not guessed he is a big Hammers fan, but that's not the only reason he had my backing.  The Apprentice this year seems full of second rate estate agents and halfwit PA's, not the cream of the up and coming crop.  Simon has been an exception to that with his positive attitude to hard work and straight talking.

I won't go into the details of the task, but it was plain for all to see in the boardroom that either Claire or Alex should have gone.  Claire is just a bossy, gobby type who will go pretty soon and Alex is the type of Machiavelian character you see in every office who probably tells everyone how hard they work when they do sweet FA.  Simon did need to listen more but should have certainly survived at least another week.

Anyway, we're proud of you Simon and you never know, there may well be a vacancy at Upton Park at some point in the near future for a manager who can make even the walking wounded work......

West Ham fans do me proud

Possibly the second best West Ham blog on the web (do you really have to ask for the first best?) is that of Iain Dale, part time politician, full time Hammer.  Dale has recently done a post on Frank Lampard and the news of his mother's illness. 

I saw the story had 60 comments and I thought 'oh no, not sure I want to read what people say' here but the tone is one of complete sympathy and the putting aside of Frank Jr's occasional impetuous behaviour.  And it made me feel proud to be a Hammer to see such maturity displayed.  My first ever match was West Ham v Southampton, in 1982, and in a 1-1 draw a certain Frank Lampard (sr) scored the equaliser.  You can't buy memories like that and hence the name Frank Lampard will always mean something good to me. As a lifelong Hammer, I can only send my best wishes to Frank and family and hope Mrs Lamps makes a full recovery.

A taxi driver recently said to me that London drove him totally crazy, but somehow the good always outweighed the bad and that's what made it worth staying for, and that it was the same with football - what wise words.

You can read the Iain Dale blog here and comments here are also open...

Bolton 1 West Ham 0 - player rankings

The Hammers rolled over once again on Saturday as Curb's first season threatens to end with a whimper rather than a bang.  It's still difficult because we would have all accepted 10th place at the start of this season and that's what we have got.  Yet, it's hard to back the team and Curbs when they are giving us lacklustre performances such as that against Pompey and what we saw for a majority of the game against Bolton, another team there for taking.

There was certainly an improvement in the second half and there are indeed some positive signs for next season.  For example, if Scott Parker stays fit, I think he can be a total star for the club and young Freddie Sears just puts a smile on my face with his tenacity and pace.  But players like Mullins and Boa-Morte are just not giving us enough at the moment.  Anyway, I'll leave my big rant until the end of the season, here's my rankings;

Green - 6 - not much wrong as usual, must just be cursing the defence in front of him

Macca - 5 - not his best performance us by any means, seemed a little out of sorts

Upson - 6 - not back to his commanding best but having been out for a few weeks can be forgiven

Spector - 5 - at best a squad player but just not good enough for a week in week out type of player

Pantsil - 5 - seems to have some cult status among some at Upton Park, but his distribution was poor and defensive qualities questionable today

Collison- 6 - tough game for a debut and was fairly quiet but would certainly like to see more the lad

Mullins - 5 - I'm really bored of his backward passing and for a holding midfielder, I want to see more tackles flying in

Parker - 7 - most bright bits came from him, has some sublime skill and just hope he stays fit

Boa-Morte - 6 - I'm always willing him on to prove us wrong but still not seeing anything that says we should keep him on

Zamora - 5 - quiet game out on the wing, hard to judge

Ashton - 6 - woke up second half and did not adapt very well to our tactics

Subs - Cole 6 and Sears 6 - tried to liven us up but to no avail.

Don't mean to be so gloomy, but we really should have beaten a hard working but poor Bolton side, if we don't thrash Derby on Saturday, I'll be having words with Mr Curbs!

Bolton v West Ham Preview

Well, you would have noticed by now there was no review of the perforomance on Tuesday, but really, what could I say?  It was unacceptable to lose against a team who were clearly there for the taking.  I don't care that we are safe, it's a season of survival, etc, we pay good money to be entertained and ask for about 3 hours full passion from our players every week for 9 months in return, is that really too much to ask?  We were rubbish, crikey, I didn't realise how angry I still was about this match, lucky I didn't post on Tuesday night eh?

So, on to the Trotters on Saturday and I'm not feeling in charitable mood.  This band of route one merchants sent us down under Glen Rodent years ago and I think it's time we helped bang a nail in someone else's coffin for a change.  I want 90 minutes of pressing, 50/50 tackles, attacking football and solid defending.  Will I get it?  Will I ****, but maybe Curbs and the team can prove there is more to our future than mid-table mediocrity.  And I demand that we finish above the Spuds as well.  So, here's theam to do it;

Green

Macca - Ferdy - Upson (please be back, otherwise Tomkins) - Skippy

Zamora - Parker - Noble/Mullins - Nobby

Ashton - Sears

Zamora on the left is a bit radical, it would be more of an attacking role, wide and in-between the middle and the strikers, anything but Boa-Morte.

Prediction?  Ha, well, my head says 4-0 rout by Bolton and Coral will even give you 50-1, my heart is willing a 1-0 steal in the last minute to break theirs.  Either way, free bet at Coral as usual, click below...and please Irons, make it good...

West Ham v Portsmouth Match Preview

So the chimes of Pompey meet the Bow Bells on Tuesday night with the visit of Portsmouth to Upton Park.  Harry Redknapp brings his band of merry men, fresh from their Cup Semi Final victory and I have to say they deserve their day at Wembley having fought their way there. 

Redknapp still divides opinion at Uptpn Park, I'm not going to get fully into the debate here, but the one thing I always say to those who claim he was a managerial genius for us is that I could probably buy and sell 134 players over 7 years and come up with a few gems.  Let us also not forget he was blessed with some of the finest young talent in the shape of Ferdinand, Carrick, Lampard, Cole, etc but we never looked like progressing.  However, the Redknapp we seen now seems slightly different to the one we had at West Ham and his tactical awareness is now much better than what we witnessed in his era.

Anyhow, on to the game and 10 days rest has done us some favours, with McCartney, Pantsil, Zamora and Sears all set to return to action.  In spite of the rumours, the official site seems to claim that Upson might even be ready for a comeback, which suggests he is not out for the season.  So, I'm putting forward a line up of;

Green

Macca - Ferdy - Spector - Skippy

Pantsil - Noble - Parker  - Solano

Ashton - Zamora

That's right, I don't want Boa-Morte on the pitch as usual and I think it would be interesting to give Pantsy a run on the left wing.  He can dribble and has a bit of pace on him and I reckon he may well thrive in such a position.  The other thing you could do is put Zamora on the left and start with Sears partnering Ashton, but I'd rather give Sears 45/60 rather than a full start for this one.

As for the score, I reckon Pompey might be distracted by their Wembley triumph, so I fancy us to nick it, though you can guarantee Defoe will score agaisnt us, so 2-1 to the Hammers.  Coral will give you 7-1 for this and having picked the 2nd and 3rd runners in the National yesterday, you should catch me on my hot betting form!  Coral will give you a free tenner bet as well if you use the link below, up the Hammers...

West Ham to face MLS All Stars

West Ham have confirmed their visit to Toronto in the Summer and will include a game against a star studded MLS team.  The game could see the Hammers up against members of the LA Galaxy team including David Beckham.  I'm sure visiting supporters will be looking forward to renewing their acquaintance with one of our favourite visitors to Upton Park.

The match against the MLS All Stars will be played on 24 July and Hammers CEO Scott Duxbury was looking forward to the prospect, stating "It is an honor to be taking part in the MLS All-Star Game this July.  The club has a strong global fan base and we are working hard to increase our international exposure as well as help the game develop at grassroots level across North America. Our players are all looking forward to the challenge. It will be a great experience both for the established names in our squad and our talented youngsters. We are sure it will be a competitive and memorable occasion.”

Let's hope we are parading some top new signings and not down to our 'bare bones' but that point of close-season.

Etherington and Faubert out

The club have confirmed that Matthew Etherington and Julien Faubert will miss the remainder of the season with their respective groin and calf injuries.  Curbs is keen for Faubert to have a full pre-season so we can see what moved him to spend 6m on the promising winger - let's hope it's not the same as what he saw that prompted him to buy Luis Boa-Morte.  Losing these two is likely to mean we will see more of Boa-Morte for the rest of the season, as our options are limited to injury prone players such as Ljungberg and Solano.

Sunderland 2 West Ham 1

Well, I did say it would be 2-1, but not quite how I imagined it to turn out.  It was pretty tight and had we still had 11 on the pitch I think it would have still turned out to be a draw, but their tails were up and they wanted and needed it a bit more and got 3 points in their cup final. 

The important thing now is for us to finish ahead of Spurs, I've had banter with my Spurs mates all season and they keep saying 'let's wait till the end of the season' in fact, they've been saying that since September!  There's only a few games left and I'd really like us to finish above the whingers from Sh*te Hart Lane and show them what a 'big' club really is, so let's see some momentum for the next match against Pompey Hammers!

Sunderland v West Ham match preview

So we're off to the Stadium of Sh*te on Saturday for 3 points against the Mackems.  I know, I'm not usually so optimistic but I fancy us in this one.  Sunderland are a pretty mediocre team and are there for the taking.  The only danger could be Kenwyne Jones giving the boys at the back a bit of a run around as he did at Upton Park and with Upson out again, this could mean trouble.  Aside from that, I don't think we have anything to fear from this side and we should really push on at them with a 442.  So, my line up would read...

Green

Macca (congrats on the new arrival George) Tomkins Ferdy Skippy

Ljungberg Noble Parker Solano

Ashton Sears/Zamora

I've got all faith in Mr Tomkins at the back after his debut last week and like I said, I think this is a great game to start Sears on, provided he has recovered from his groin strain, otherwise Bobby Z has recovered from his blisters!

My money is on Sunderland 1 West Ham 2 - Coral will give you 10-1 and a free 10 quid bet, so it that bad boy comes in you'll be looking at a hundred quid and be thanking me forever.  Click the link below for your free bet...

Update: Oh, I love it when opposing fans take the bait, so a warm welcome to all those from Roker Park's very own ReadytoGo website, if any Hammer's fans fancy seeing opinions about cockneys that have not been around since the dark ages, take a peek - http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=318167&page=1

Chimney sweeps, bless em!  What is it about the North East?  There was of course my famous Newcastle post, don't I get some credit for that Mackems?!  Jesus, there is no pleasing some people....