At the time of writing this, the transfer window has not yet closed – but the hopes and dreams of the Upton Park faithful that we’ll sign another striker are fading fast (and I’m not staying up past my bed time just to be depressed.) We’re watching deal after deal fall through – assumedly for financial reasons – and there is one big free-agenty-thing sticking in the back of supporter’s minds.
We could re-sign Carlton Cole.
When he left back in May, having turned down a new contract (this has been confirmed by David Gold on Twitter) it was a bittersweet goodbye. He was good for us over the years, although I fall short of using the term ‘prolific.’ He felt he was worth more money and could do better elsewhere – we felt we were better than Carlton’s wage demands and could get a better striker from elsewhere – so it was a strange scenario (albeit one that at the time seemed mutually beneficial.) Fast forward to September 2nd, and as it turns out that neither West Ham nor Carlton have actually done any “better.”
We have made some good signings over the summer – but we’ve been left with a £15million injury, an overly talented midfield who did nothing against Stoke City, one striker who’d rather leave thank you very much, and another striker who isn’t bad per se, but just does not fit into a lone striker scenario.
Take the above, combined with the fact that Cole is a free agent who would not command an excessively high wage after being unsigned all summer, and, well… would you take Carlton back? And if we did re-sign Cole, who is coming crawling back to who? Do we need him more than he needs us?
We’ve somehow fallen out of the frying pan and straight into the burning depths of hell when it comes to strikers, and waltzed into the football equivalent of a break up where both parties are sure they can pull someone better, and after one too many dark lonely nights of sobbing over Marley and Me, decide to get back together after all.
I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that something good clicks into place, and Demba Ba realises Big Sam is his soul mate, but in the likely event that he doesn’t, I’m hoping West Ham and Carlton can come to another mutually beneficial agreement regarding his wages, and that West Ham and Cole can come crawling back to each other before we throw away any more points.
Yeah- I can’t believe I just said that, either.
Good read, Have a read of our article titled “False Hope” regarding Jack Sullivan’s tweets on deadline day: http://goo.gl/do8bSW
no strikers,means relegation here we come…maigas ajoke,
not even good enough to be a hackney marsh player…
Stop shitting your knickers and relax you clown. We r never getting relegated, we will av a few bad games and some good ones just like every other side. Stop panicking its pathetic
Once again the joke of London, why oh why could we not attract a decent player. Big Sam or Gold and Sullivan, once again the faithful fans will have to put up with the derision of all other londan supporters. Forget the Olympic Stadium it’s just another fools dream and we’ve been on the same one since 1966.
Squad wise we are little better than last season, almost all other teams have vastly improved squads. All our hopes are pinned on Andy Carroll playing every game from Southampton onwards. Will Sam have to use our Development squad this season? Are they ready for the Premier League?
Dazza as hit the nail on the head why can’t Sam or the owners see this.
No dazza is a clown and so are you. Anyone who thinks we are going down is nothing but a fool and you shouldn’t bother watching football. THE TEAMS THAT GO DOWN ARE THE TEAMS THAT CAN’T DEFEND, NOT ONES THAT CAN’T SCORE ENOUGH. WE GOT 10TH LAST YEAR WITHOUT A FLIPPIN LEFT BACK AND CARLTON COLE PLAYING UPFRONT MOST OF THE TIME ! stop panicking like little girls, its embarrassing
What an absolute disgrace . Bottom 6 struggle to look forward to . The filth pedlars have taken the p##s out of us all …. again . Messi is about the only striker we were not linked to . They never had any intention of buying anybody …. and , by the way, the wage cap is not in operation until 2015 …. wa#k##s.
how can we say we are an ambitious club with only one decent striker.and that striker will be sat at home most saturdays with injuries.all i can see is a relegation battle coming which we will lose.
We are a laughing stock we bought Carroll who I love great player but we all know you can not keep him fit !!! How are we gonna fill the Olympic stadium in the championship cause that’s where were going you need goals and we ain’t getting none with poxy miaga he is not even fit for the championship sam play vaz te for goodness sake ……….
Yawwwwn stop crying and man up for 5 mins
Good article, I fully agree…. I can’t believe I just said that, either….!!!!?
Naive from Gold and Sullivan all transfer window,prioritising Downing over the much needed striker was amateurish!,we havnt got enough goals in our team as it is and now talks of Barn door Cole coming back is just hopelessly embarrassing!!!,their are better players on the non league scene,Christ give me strength!!!.
We didn’t sell or loan anyone out yesterday which means our wage bill is still maxed out. Now the window is closed we can’t move anyone either which means even Big Carlton is a non starter. We are stuck with one decent, though injury prone, striker until January.
the 2 David’s and Sam or taking the mick there the only team that was talking about the fair play rule. They do take the West Ham fans for mugs the fair play rule no one else was talking about this. The 3 of them I just don’t have words for them well I will start with useless, that’s my rant. Oh by the way Cole is better than no one
Instead of spending a substantial amount on Downing West Ham should have enquired and purchased Jermaine Defoe for 5 Mill. A proven goal scorer plus he would have fed off of Carroll nicely picking up the pieces. We need goals, hopefully if Carroll stays fit we can survive, however he is known in the footballing world as the man of glass, spending more time out injured than playing. Allardyce needs to play two strikers up front rather than the lone man role which is a waste of time.
sam don’t have the know how to play two up front he is taticlyuseless
l have surported westham all my life .l watch. the whole transfer new.s p could not beleave that we did not get a striker .we wil end up getting. a three leged dog .but he will be better than we got .westham have got to look at other teams like westbrom .eveton.cardif they dont have money but try to make them stronger.with bottle. and guts .that is what westham dont have anymore.u can sighn mum if they whant got to be better than we have got. cheers. cum on u hammers
Elliot lee banged in a hatrick yesterday for dev squad , given minutes on sat , got to be better then Maiga as a out and out striker , as for Carlton cole west ham fans forget the loyalty he gave ( played for half salary ) when we were in the championship , I would have him above Vaz te all day long
I’d happily have Cole back, I didn’t want to see him go, but if we are to believe all the financial fair play stuff (that only appears to apply to West Ham) there’s no room for him on the wage bill.
Would it be possible to have him on a pay as you play though – as surely we could find some money to afford that?
Got high hopes for Lee based on that hat-trick, but don’t want to create a Sears-like situation where we rush him to first team too soon because we’re desperate!
Apparently, Barry Silkman said on the BBC this morning that a London club are in the process of bringing back an old player that has recently left the club. Doesn’t take the brains of an Archbishop to work that one out.
You’re right about Lee too – actually, you’re usually right about everything! another great article btw.
It does only appear to apply for us! I agree completely! I have heard no other manager, chairman, or even Jim White say anything about financial fair play.
The problem is that BFS isn’t the one picking the dev team players and tactics
Totally agree with all these comments. We are all speaking as one! It’s at times like these it’s embarrassing to tell people I’m a West Ham fan. Let’s all hope that Carroll keeps fit and we can keep out of trouble this season. It’s going to be another roller coaster, white knuckle ride for sure.
“Dad, why was I born in West Ham?” Lol.
Come on u Irons!!!
The basic mistake is spending the vast majority of our budget on a player who is injury prone – his ‘headless chicken’ playing style means that he will always be fighting injury – he appeared in just 24 games last year scoring a meagre 7 goals – hardly prolific.
The game on Saturday against Stoke came as a real wake-up call – there was no attack – I can’t remember Begovic making a save – Maiga looked completely out of his depth and is totally unsuited to the lone striker role.
So the upshot of all this is that when Carroll is inevitably injured we have no alternative and will surrender cheap points.
The Owners are more aware than anyone that West Ham must stay in the Premier
League for the Olympic Stadium move to be a success – the lack of any Plan B when Carroll is injured has left relegation a real possibilty.
Am i the only one that think Maiga should not be in the squad full stop – Vaz Te should be given a chance as he scored 20+ goals as a striker at Barnsley and then us a couple of seasons ago as an out and out striker, so why not give him a chance, i think he would be a lot better than that useless lump up top at the moment. Hopefully Carroll will be fit for the Southampton game, and if im honest a blessing in disguise that Downing is injured, finally now Ravel should get his chance – class act. Carlton back as well, what have we got to lose maybe another goal against Chelsea??!
Its alright Carroll will be back for Southampton game. we just need to hope that he doesn’t get injured again but im Certain we will get some more decent players in in January and get rid of all the shit players.
God could have played up front on Saturday even he would have struggled to get a shot on target let alone score. The problem was that our midfield was simply not at the races coupled with the fact that Stoke were determined to hassle and harass us until we lost the ball. We were far too deep as a unit and when we needed to push on in the second half, we had nobody displaying any guile and flair to open them up. Somebody should have told the team we were playing at home as it looked like a classic away team up!
It was one of the worst West Ham displays in many a year apart from the defending of Reid and Collins. They were excellent!!
Sat watching deadline day all evening waiting for WHUFC news but nothing. Major downer. Everyone knows we need a striker, Maiga is a shocker, Vaz Te lightweight but worth keeping and now the prolific Carlton is back!!!! You cant win games without scoring however good your defence. I agree BFS will get us enough points to stay up, but we all want progression however small, just something to show some ambition.