Tony Cottee’s Column: He Can Be Our No.1 For Years To Come

Tony Cottee is back with his EXCLUSIVE Forever West Ham column. Read about who gets Tony’s vote for ‘Hammer of the Year’, his thoughts on West Ham target Kasper Schmeichel and much, much more.

Hammer of the Year

I know the award has been already been handed out but, for what it is worth, I would have voted Winston Reid. Winston’s consistency has been superb and his leadership on the pitch is fantastic.

Obviously, there were other contenders; Jussi improved as the season went on and Andy Carroll has been in fine form but, for me, it had to be Reid.

Carrying on from Reid, I was surprised to see him not even being mentioned as a possible candidate to make the PFA Team of Season. I’m not saying Rio doesn’t deserve his place in the team but, would Reid have made the team, if he was performing like he has been for us, at Manchester United? I think we all know the answer.

Next Season

First and foremost, Sam needs to get his contract sorted but I’m expecting an announcement shortly that will finally put to bed the rumours and announce that Sam has signed a new deal.

Sam can offer West Ham the stability they need; he can make sure we are playing Premier League football when we move into the Olympic Stadium.

I totally understand the fans desire to see the claret and blue entertaining the ‘big boys’ of European football and I genuinely believe those wonderful nights will come, but we have to be patient.

Under Alan Pardew we had a brilliant season where we finished 9^th and then the following season, well, I don’t need to remind you what happened. If we can finish around 10^th place this season and then next season improve on that by a minimum of one place then that, in my opinion, can be deemed a successful season.

Andy Carroll

I would have loved to have played upfront with Andy, you know he will win the header and give you several chances every match to grab a goal or two.

Andy is a top talent and I know Sam would love to see him, as would I, at West Ham on a permanent basis but we have to be make sure signing Andy doesn’t eat up too much of the transfer budget (even though I do believe Andy can go on to become a Hammers legend).

Lets say, for arguments sake, that our budget is £15 million then I don’t really think the board should be spending more than £10 million (£12 million at a push) on Andy, we have other areas we need to strengthen and it would be foolish to jeopardise that for one player.

Kasper Schmeichel

I have seen rumours linking us with a move for my former club’s current goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel and I have to say I’m excited by this.

Kasper’s Dad was the best goalkeeper I played against in the Premier League and I see a lot of Peter’s qualities in Kasper such as his confidence and unbelievable distribution.

If West Ham do sign Kasper then I genuinely believe they are not only signing their No.1 for next season but also their No.1 for at least the next decade.

Favourite Game

It came away at Stamford Bridge in 1986 and at the full-time whistle the score line read Chelsea 0 West Ham 4.

We played phenomenally that day, especially when you consider it was a really ‘heavy’ pitch, with Alan Devonshire in his usual form, orchestrating the play and grabbing an absolute beauty of a goal from 30 yards to give us the lead.

I grabbed a couple in the space of a few minutes and McAvennie finished off the scoring (pouncing on a mis-hit shot from yours truly but I will always claim I knew what I was doing.)

The 4-0 over Chelsea was one of many highlights of a great season for us, which saw us finish in a club-record league position of 3^rd; quite a remarkable result when you consider where the two respective teams lie in the world of football now.