West Ham United 2009-2010

Zola…….the rabbit in the headlights of the premier league. This was the report in the English press after West Ham had paid 5m pound to Chelsea for Jose Morinho’s ex number 2 Steve Clarke. In my life as a football supporter I have never heard of so much money being paid by a club to bring in a back up to the manager. Zola had obviously asked for him as soon as he realized he was out of his depth (not hard at 5 foot 3) in the best league in the world.

 
Chelsea fans were saying ”Agent Zola, Agent Clarke, mission is relegation for West Ham and then come home.” It was funny at first but as the season dragged on it began looking like a reality.
Season itself started well with an away win at Wolves and a narrow home defeat to Spurs, but then it all started to crack as arch rivals from League One, Millwall stunned Upton Park by taking the league cup game to extra time. This should have been a wake up call for Zola and co. but instead things went from bad to worse as they began a run of 12 games with only one victory. Against the claret and blue of Aston Villa. By this time The Hammers were struggling near the drop zone.
 The next win came against the only other claret and blue in the league, Burnley. I travelled over with the West Ham Fans Sverige to see this one, came third in the quiz the night before the game and had a great day out. 3-0 up at half time and then leading 5 – 0……..could this be the turning point? We are after all ”too good to go down!” One blink and its 5-2, then 5-3! Bubbles had been burst again, we were all very nervous and then relieved as the final whistle went. Things were obviously not right at the club as the previous Icelandic regime had left more than a cloud of ash over the East End and with so much talent at hand, Zola still struggled to get them to bond as a unit on the field.
One win in the following 10 games (against bottom club Portsmouth) meant time was running out and the need for big changes was a desperate one. New owners by the name of Gold and Sullivan took a major stake in the club and immediately announced that they have a plan B if West Ham get relegated. At least there was a plan, the problem was, and still is that it seems that plan A is to clear up and fix the mess that the Icelandics had left behind. At the same time try to increase moral at the club by announcing that the 2012 Olympic stadium will be the clubs new home as soon as the games were over. Meanwhile Zola given a voye of confidence and continued to baffle fans and journalists with his tactical mysteries, resulting in a slide into the bottom 3.
A lifeline was thrown as the only back to back victories of the season against Birmingham and Hull provided a needed 6 points. Diamanti was on form, Carlton Cole had recovered from injury, Scott Parker was running the middle and England keeper Green had kept 2 clean sheets in a row. Surely we must be safe now!! Of course not. Zola was still there and 6 straight defeats sent us into April and only 6 games remaining.
Squeaky bum time as they say and with Portsmouth already down it was a fight to the death, until Hull sacked manager Phil Brown and brought in the highly qualified, extrememly ugly, completely useless Ian Dowie. Owen Coyle had already deserting Burnley for Bolton, leaving Burnley managerless with Brian Laws (same thing as being managerless) and West Ham found themselves with 3 teams below them that were in fact worse than them and, hard to believe and even harder to say, with managers worse than Zola. We had a chance!
Scraping a win against Wigan and Hull losing on the same day meant survival. Not sure if it was deserved but either way I have the feeling that it would have been a long long time before West Ham would have played top flight football again. With the money guaranteed to come into the club as a result of premiership football, the new owners can now begin to rebuild, hopefully starting with the demolition of the current managerial set up and a new, experienced face to lead the club next season. I just couldnt face another season like 2009/2010.
I am saving my pennies for my trip to the World Cup but The Scandinavian Hammers and the West Ham Fans Sverige are all going over for the Tony Carr testimonial and the last game against Man City. I wonder if Tevez will score against his old club again and then score against England in South Africa in the summer.

Guest Blogger

Gary Thornton

Blackburn’s penalty shoot-out victory over Chelsea in the Carling Cup has further cemented a revival in the competition’s fortunes after years in the doldrums.

Teams from outside the top six or seven in the Premier League (in terms of league position or transfer spending) can once more dream of lifting silverware, right?

Can they hell as like.

That Chelsea made eight changes from their previous game (a Premier League fixture with Arsenal that really mattered), played for around an hour with 10 men and still took the match to penalties tells all you need to know about the cavernous gulf between the top sides and the rest.

To be fair to England’s junior domestic knockout tournament (although the FA Cup’s gloss has also long since been muddied) there are the occasional jokers in the pack to lighten the mood.

Burnley knocked out several Premier League clubs on their way to the semi-finals last season and were within a few minutes of defeating a tottering Spurs in the last four.

But they couldn’t quite manage it.

And, had they done so, they wouldn’t have beaten a predominantly second-sting Manchester United in the Final.

Those things just don’t happen anymore.

There was a period in the late nineties and early noughties when the League Cup (under its various sponsor guises) brought up surprise winners on a regular basis.

That all changed when an Abramovich-era Chelsea decided to treat the competition as one worth winning.

It appears to be getting a little beneath them again, yet the strength of their squad is such that their scratch team at Ewood Park contained the German captain along with a whole host of other pivotal members of their respective national set-ups.

The point is – had Chelsea really wanted to win Wednesday’s game they would have done.

Yet despite the loss of one football superpower we are now left with Blackburn as the quaint underdog in the last four.

Joining them is the most popular club in the world, the club with the deepest pockets in the world and, let’s face it, in Aston Villa we hardly have a minnow.

Having said that, if Aston Villa should surprise either Manchester club in the final (I am making the assumption that Blackburn will be plucky, but gallant losers over the course of their semi-final meetings) then it will be only the second time in six years that the winner has come from outside the old-skool ‘Big Four’ (and even that team was Tottenham, who are not exactly one of life’s paupers).

Middlesbrough, Blackburn and Leicester may have all won the League Cup in the last 10 years but any such belief that every dog has his day can now be consigned to the pound with the other mongrels.

Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti showed just what lengths must be gone to in order to sabotage the League Cup challenge of one of the top clubs.

Best make it interesting and start with nine men next time, Carlo.

Blackburn might even have won in 90 minutes that way. 

Greg Lansdowne

England’s boy wonder, Theo Walcott, experienced what may be a career-defining moment this week.

Amongst a huge number of supporters, no one has championed his cause more than his club manager, Arsene Wenger.

But when the Arsenal boss’s patience with the winger has been exhausted it is time for Walcott to start worrying.

What seemed like a routine press-conference ahead of a similarly routine Champions League tie – home to Standard Liege – was turned into a Wenger tirade punctuated by the odd four-letter word thrown in for good measure.

What triggered it was yet another question directed by the English media to Wenger about the most hyped Premier League footballer of his generation. 

“Will Walcott’s return [from his latest injury lay-off] be good for England’s World Cup hopes?”, was the gist of the enquiry.

Wenger’s retort was not what the gathered throng would have anticipated.

To sum up, Wenger let everyone in the room be made aware of the fact that Walcott’s selection for the England squad should in no way be guaranteed and the 20-year-old should concentrate on delivering the goods for his club for the rest of the season.

Rarely, if ever, has a negative comment been levelled in the direction of Walcott by Wenger since he signed the player in January 2006.

Almost four years later, however, and Walcott’s influence on the Arsenal team remains peripheral.

And Wenger knows it.

Arsenal face their most important game of the season so far on Sunday when they host Chelsea.

Lose that match and they can kiss goodbye to any fleeting hopes of winning the title for another year.

Will Walcott making the starting line-up?

Almost certainly not.

In mitigation he is only just returning from injury, but the chances are he would not have been risked in the starting line-up for such a match of high-importance even if he had been fit for several weeks.

When Patrice Evra branded last season’s Champions League semi-finals between Manchester United and Arsenal as ‘men against boys’, there was no more junior player, in stature and impact, on the opposition than Walcott.

That despite the fact that he had already made 100 first-team appearances for Arsenal by that stage, and scored a hat-trick for England.

Not that his three goals against Croatia did him any favours.

All that freak turn of events did was to raise the level of expectation still further.

He may still be ‘only’ 20 but the vast majority of footballers who have gone on to become world-class footballers were offering far more to their club side at that age than Walcott does to Arsenal.

That Walcott remains a liability in matches against the top sides – and his solo assist in the Champions League against Liverpool in 2008 does not make up for all of his other displays when he has resembled a ‘little boy lost’ – should be a concern to himself, Arsenal and England.

Now that Wenger has finally revealed his reservations, there may be a few other believers starting to doubt themselves.

Then we will really see what Walcott is made of.        

Greg Lansdowne