Diamanti Must Start At Wigan!

The JJB Stadium has been a happy hunting ground for West Ham, except for that season when genetically modified moles were purchased from Chernobyl to dig up the playing surface in order to disrupt our passing game. Even when we needed to lose to knock Palace out of the play-offs, we somehow contrived to draw with a late late goal from that useless lump Brain Deane.

Wigan are in turmoil at the moment and that opening day victory at Villa seems a long, long time ago. I rate Martinez but there must be some doubts inside the dressing room after consecutive heavy defeats and some brutally frank criticism from the manager. You can imagine some are already thinking, "Well, a few more results like that and nobody will care what you think mate."

This is a great time to be playing the Latics and we need to put them to the sword, not circle the wagons, Turds style, and settle for a 0-0 draw from the kick off. The performance at Blackburn was gutless - it reminded me of the darkest days of Curbishley. Yes we played the ball on the ground rather than trying to launch it into orbit, but where was the attacking ambition? Poor Carlton must have thought that the rest of the team had gone home early, he was so isolated up front. I'm unconvinced by Jimenez - he sits far too deep and is not getting up to support Cole quickly enough. Dyer was anonymous after he came on but he did, at least, try to run beyond Cole after replacing Jimenez - albeit, the ball never got to him because Parker and Noble were under the impression that there was a prohibition on passing the ball forwards once we had reached the half way line.

This game is crying out for Diamanti. He must feel like a dog with three cocks after his two goals for the reserves and Wigan are the ideal opponents for his debut. We need to show much more attacking intent and Cole has to feel that he hasn't been sent to Coventry for every away fixture. If we play like we did at Blackburn, the best we can hope for is a draw; if we go for Wigan's throats from the off, a two or three goal victory could be on the cards. But without Diamanti, who will score the goals exactly?