What next?

As I write the Hammers occupy top spot in the Championship, 3 points clear of Southampton.

Sam Allardyce has built a tough big squad with a pretty small budget, he’s cut the cancer from the heart of the club by getting rid of bloodsuckers such as Dyer and Upson, he’s bought through some academy lads, loaned more out for experience, kept the core of our good young players, and indeed signed some decent ones too, the capture of Nolan was a real coupe. His no nonsense, take no cr*p, winning mentality is now being shown by his players on the pitch. Big Sam has seemingly begun to rebuild a losing lame horse into a potential thoroughbred and this clearly highlights the need for a top quality manager at any club, something West Ham United have lacked for several years since Alan Curbishley’s principles got the better of him.

We all know the depth of Big Sam’s preparation and his devotion to opta stats etc, we know he clearly is the boss and demand high standards, we can see this through the way his players react to his instructions and his reaction should they not follow orders, we see it through the board, in particular David Sullivan, the man who could not shut up when Zola and Grant were in charge has, by some miracle, lost his voice. Ms Brady herself speaks of nothing derogatory in her newspaper column.

Looking for experience? Just want to be heard outside of the Boleyn? We are currently looking for writers, drop us an email at foreverwestham@snack-media.com for more details

So let’s say that come may and Big Sam’s West Ham have indeed won promotion, one way or another, to the Premier League. What happens next?

The board have gone to much length to make sure we all know what a mess the finances are in and that it is they alone that have financed our return, we’ve seen how the majority of signings were on a free transfer or loan deals, how the club have cut the wage bill by shipping out the dead wood. So I wonder what they do now. How many of the current squad, which bear in mind, a lot of them got us relegated last time, would be retained and surely on a higher wage? How many would be deemed not good enough and moved on? And what about loaned players such as Lansbury?

Have the owners learnt their lesson from the relegation season, when in the summer they spent all our money on “World Cup stars” that were simply second rate, was this down to a weak manager that accepted the players the board bought for him? Was it said manager that just did a bad job with them? In all honesty there’s no way Allardyce would take that so would he have the funds to sign significantly better players and not only that but what would we, as fans, expect from our first season back?

Apply now for the dream job – Read about West Ham and YOU get PAID http://bit.ly/ffc-foreverwestham  

Would we be happy to finish fourth from bottom, or would we have higher expectations seeing as we now have a real top flight manager who demands results? What would be realistic?

We then have the matter of the manager himself, promotion for the Hammers and Sam would be in the front row for English managers looking to succeed a certain Italian, he’s made no bones about his desire to manage his country, was this the reason for only a two year deal or had the board really learnt their lesson with long contracts for previous managers and would they let him go anyway? Do they have a choice?

And what of investment, Gold and Sullivan keep saying they want someone else on board to help take the club forward, well as Fernandez found out maybe that’s not the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Do we need a big investor or is it a case of once bitten? Remember the Icelandic’s?

Also bear in mind we have a global event in our back yard this summer with the Olympic games, I would expect a couple of our boys to be in the GB squad for the football, Noble, Collison perhaps hall, so what if they have a fantastic tournament, finish in a medal spot, would these boys be on a bigger clubs radar? Would it diversely affect them for the season ahead?

Could the club really afford not to get it right this time bearing in mind our possible home move?

These are just thoughts of mine that I wonder about and I know now is not the time to ponder what ifs but i think it will interesting if and hopefully when we gain promotion just how many points here become real issues?

The fastest growing Hammers website is now on Facebook, click the link to be entered into our up and coming competitions http://www.facebook.com/pages/ForeverWestHamcom/200938616608282