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A hard few days for West Ham fans

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Nottingham ForestYou sometimes wonder as a Hammers fan, if life is excruciatingly painful because West Ham make it that way, or West Ham are poor because life is dealing you a bad hand. It’s an age old question for me that is barely worth dwelling on, however, whilst I’ll never question or change my allegiance, the last ten days have been nothing but a chore for me.

Firstly, we had the joy on New Year’s day of Kevin Nolan throwing his toys out of the pram and getting himself a second red card in a matter of games. Nolan must be delighted. He’s getting paid a ridiculous wage to captain a club that he’s recently shown no passion for whatsoever, he has more time off and currently doesn’t have to work Saturdays, and even better for him, he doesn’t have a Twitter account. Had he had an account with the aforementioned social media I imagine the evening of January 1st would have been very unpleasant, with the true feelings of all loyal Hammers being beamed to him for him to read. Me, I’d be ecstatic to let Nolan know a thing or two about how I feel.

My thoughts on him are of a general lack of responsibility. We already have Mark Noble and Winston Reid, two other leaders, out through injury, so a wise, steady and calming head in the team, when other key players like Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing and James Collins are also out injured, is a necessity. Not content with a red card against Liverpool for a disgraceful and needless lunge on Jordan Henderson, Nolan decided to kick out at Fernando Amorebieta right under the referee’s nose, earning him his second red card in four appearances. With that red comes a four-match ban. Four match ban aside, the catalyst for Fulham’s win was Nolan’s red card.

Things already bleak, we went into the transfer window needing new faces who were able to turn things around and fast. Sam Allardyce found his targets and put in a bid that was later accepted, for Everton’s Johnny Heitinga. Agreeing the deal in all but principle, Heitinga met with Sam and left deciding that the club wasn’t giving him the right feel. With this, came murmurings of discontent from us West Ham fans. How can we not attract a player who doesn’t get first team football? What didn’t give Heitinga the right feel about joining West Ham? And who on earth will we get in to shore up our defence? Manchester City’s Joleon Lescott was mentioned in passing, Sam likes him, but it was unlikely we’d agree a deal with other clubs sniffing around him. Who then? Who can come in and stop the rot? Roger Johnson came in from Wolverhampton Wanderers having been relegated three times in the past three years. A player who had spent most of the season on loan at the near-bottom-of-The-Championship Sheffield Wednesday and has failed to impress may Wolves fans who, with no discredit to them, have been watching League One football this season. Climbing up the league seems pretty much definite now

Between the Heitinga and Roger Johnson transfer fiascos came the welcome distraction of the FA Cup. Third round day saw us go to Nottingham Forest to play a Championship side in recent good form. What followed was a disgrace. A 5-0 defeat, playing inexperienced youngsters, in front of 3,000 travelling fans. We were a shambles. The youngsters may well have been affected by such a result and display, the fans were clearly upset (one poor young boy in particular) and the whole country saw this embarrassment transpire in front of them live on television. The supporters who travelled were excellent, the young, inexperienced players were shellshocked and disorganised by such managerial incompetence, and senior players such as Adrian took to Twitter to apologise to the fans for the humiliation. Sam, however, who the board have publicly got behind, shirked all responsibility.

On the face of things he was honest enough to say that was always going to be the side he would be playing. He didn’t however say that he would put them on the pitch tactically unsound, with no shape and without a plan B. No, that wasn’t mentioned.

And now we have unhappy fans. Loyal, yet disgruntled fans wanting to vent their respective spleens over the shambles that is appearing right beneath their noses. Adrian, scored a lot of brownie points by apologising. Granted, it didn’t change the result or make the performance any better, but it showed us fans that the players were aware of how disappointed we were. Kevin Nolan, club captain, and Sam Allardyce, manager, have not come out and apologised. This might be why THEY are struggling to keep the fans on their side.

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2 comments

  • McAvenieeeeeeeee says:

    It was going well then you mentioned Noble and Leader in the same sentence.

  • Deano says:

    This whole saga is a joke, recent results have been humiliating, we have played crap all season bar 3 games. We are getting relegated. Dunno what Roger Johnson is doing? Must be going for some kind of relegation record! Why sign him? He’s obviously pants! Oh I know, no one in their right mind would choose to play for fat Sam, everyone turns us down. West ham is a f*cking joke, just like SAMs football and opinion of himself.

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