What a load of codswallop!

With news breaking of the dastardly tactic of selling Vietnamese cobblers fish as cod, West Ham fans are asking themselves if anything can be taken at face value in the modern era. Punters are now demanding to know whether or not the stuff served in the Queens Fish Bar is, in fact, the real McCoy.

Local Hammer Buster Gutt moaned, "I don't want to eat any commie Vietnamese crap on the way to the game do I? If I want to eat foreign muck, there's enough Indian joints in Green Street aint there?"

More to the point, perhaps, is the issue of Curbishley's signings. If they can dress up cobblers fish as cod, does that explain how Curbishley was able to pass off Davenport, Quashie, Ljungberg, Faubert and Boa-Morte as prime catch?"

Top pundit Lee Vitout explained: "Let's face it, if most clubs had hauled in that lot in a drag net, they would have tossed them back over the side without giving them a second thought wouldn't they? But incredibly, Curbishley paid good money for them."

Mind you, if the infamous five are the equivalent of the Cobblers Fish, they are not the only ones with a Vietnamese counterpart. Leading couch potato Dean Ashton who, surprise surprise, will not make the Austrian trip, is surely the claret and blue equivalent of the pot bellied pig!