I blogged earlier in the season that the treatment of Nigel Quashie was bordering on the perverse. Okay, you would have to talk to a lot of West Ham fans before you came across somebody who rated Nigel - he would have been exhibit A in my defence of the action Turds brought against the club - but I can't see the sense of making the guy train with the youth team and banning him from training sessions with the first team when, apparently, he has done nothing wrong - other than being Nigel Quashie of course.
At the end of the day, Quashie didn't force the club to sign him and can't be blamed for accepting a contract that hopelessly over valued him. Never mind the transfer fee, thanks to Turds and Egg, we have paid him a cool one million a year in salary for each of the last three years. Sure the club are upset that he hasn't agreed to the tearing up of his contract but why the hell should he? Would you in Nigel's boots? His subsequent treatment seems spiteful, churlish and unprofessional to me.
Presumably Nigel has mates in the first team squad. Presumably they disagree with the way he has been treated and must be wondering if the same thing might happen to them. Would you play your heart out for a guy who treats one of your mates like that?
Zola's man management does seem questionable at times. I think he over-reacted to the Davenport criticism and painted himself into a corner. His failure to even talk to Ashton over the last 6 months is mighty odd. Presumably he has the guy's mobile number? A phone conversation once a week would surely be the decent thing to do given Beano's injury woes? Then there was the Lucas Neill fiasco. Zola was quoted as saying that Lucash had promised to call him ahead of making a decision. Hello? What's wrong with maintaining contact yourself, trying to persuade your captain not to jump ship? Then there was the treatment of Etherington, unceremoniously dumped amidst rumours of gambling problems, and Collins, shipped out against his wishes despite being one of our top performers over the last 12 months.
Some of us are questioning the spirit and desire of the current squad but perhaps they are looking at how team mates have been treated and are thinking, well sod that for a game. Faubert can't rate Zola very highly after anything and everything was done to try to offload him - until we woke up to the fact that, apart from Spector, we didn't have an option for right back. Even then, after picking up the player of the month award, Faux Pas found himself dropped after one poor display. That might be fair enough except for the fact that Noble and Tomkins were having a mare every week but still keeping their places in the team. Nobody likes perceived favouritism in a manager do they?
Are Quashie's quibbles the tip of the iceberg I wonder? Are the players looking at Zola and thinking, not only does he not know what he is doing, we can't even rely on him to be there for us when we need him?
Quashite is a sweaty jock cock.
ReplyDeletePlayed for England U21s though. He can't help what he is. I think he has played a very straight bat up to now despite some shocking treatment from Zola / the club.
ReplyDeleteYou may think it's unfair treatment but you state to the guy at the start of the season "look buddy, I think you're shite, you have absolutely no chance of playing in the 1st team whilst I'm manager. You have two choices, you can fack off or I'll dump you in with the kids" Nige, not being the brightest (surely hitting every branch on the ugly tree on the way down has done some damage to his brain) thinks 'the kids here play in the 1st team, I'll have some of that'. Reality kicks in and Zola's put him where he said he would. Fair play to Nige for picking up his paycheck week in week out but he almost helped take us down until he got injured and I for one am happy he's nowhere near the 1st team and happier still someone is dumb enough to take him on loan.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day, Alan Curbishley didn't force the club to employ him and can't be blamed for accepting a contract and spending the large sums of money made available to him on the only players available at the time. Sure the club were upset that he didn't agree to tear up his contract but why the hell should he? Would you have done in Alan's boots? The terms of his contract were breached! His subsequent treatment in some quarters seems spiteful, churlish and unreasonable to me.
ReplyDeleteI would rather have had Quashie playing in the team than Kovac when when Parker was recently out injured.
ReplyDeleteBut then, heaven forbid that our current management team miss out on buying a foreigner because he's, er, a foreigner?
Personally Apache I would rather have had Hayden Mullins. A good solid under-rated professional who should not have been sold. Younger, cheaper and better value for money than Kovac, but as you say; he wasn't foreign.
ReplyDeleteQuashie was fairly useless before he took 18 months off for a foot injury.
ReplyDeleteThat must have been the Dean Ashton/Kieron Dyer of all foot injuries to be fair.
21k a week for what? He came, he put in a few hard tackles, Reo Coker then saw that he had to do some work and Curbs played the better footballers - Reo Coker and Noble...
Hardly says much for a team pushing for 7th to be playing Quashie!
Whilst not as bad as demonised by fans he simply isn't good enough - otherwise he might have been signed by any of the teams he has been loaned to.
But as has been said why we sold Mullins for Kovac is beyond me...
No. What is shocking is the 20k a week we have been paying him for years!
ReplyDeleteLOL Marty, only trouble is, Turds walked out on his contract didn't he? Quashie hasn't!
ReplyDeleteM2C, good to have you looking in mate. I agree with all you say about Nigel but you do not address the main thrust of the argument, that Zola is managing people badly.
I think we are all unanimous about Kovac! Quashie better? Couldn't be worse from what I've seen! Mullins? He can't even hold down a place in a very poor Pompey team. Full of endeavour but not good enough in my book. If Noble has got any sense, he will be working on developing himself for the role. He isn't good enough to top the diamond and lacks the pace to play wide. Learn to time a tackle Mark and learn positional discipline!
But the principle is the same. If you want to get out of a contract, freely entered into; you have to do it through negotiation. Breaking the the terms of that contract or treating someone in a demeaning manner are equally unacceptable. Alan Curbishley was fully entitled to his compensation. Good luck to him.
ReplyDeleteSorry Marty, that is cobblers. We did not sack him, he walked. How demeaning is the treatment of Quashie? We never sent Turds to train with the kids.
ReplyDeleteNo need to apologise! The board broke the terms of his contract and sold players without his agreement. How demeaning is public castration?
ReplyDelete£14m for Ferdinand and Linda? Who, in their right mind, wouldn't have cashed in with Psycho Keene offering that kind of money? That's the point! If the Board had sold quality players, fair enough. But the money on offer was too good to be true. How much would we have to pay to buy the pair back now? £6m?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, but that does not alter the fact that he had a valid contract that was broken by his employers. The board should have negotiated a termination to the contract or sacked him; in which case he would have been entitled to compensation. The principle remains the same whether you like the individual or not.
ReplyDeleteAre you saying Anton wasn't a quality player? You said yesterday you still thought he would play for England!
I do think he will play for England and, as I'm sure you will remember, I didn't want him to be sold, but even as a supporter of Ferdinand, I had to accept that £8m was a lot of money given his contract was running down and Curbishley had alienated him by repeatedly, and exclusively, criticising Anton in public.
ReplyDeleteBut it wasn't the sale of Ferdinand that provoked the walk out, was it? Curbishley went because of McCartney and you will not find anybody who would say that the £6m offer for him should have been ignored with Ilunga already lined up as a £2.3m replacement. That was an obvious and irresistible piece of business.
It simply shows the pig headedness and stupidity of Curbishley that he lost his rag over the McCartney deal. Remember, as well, that we didn't have any left back cover because Turds had maintained a personal grudge against Konchesky, who seems to be coping rather well now at Fulham!
The contract was obviously stupidly worded but why didn't Curbishley walk when Nani was appointed? It was obvious what was being planned then? He accepted the new order at that point and, as I understand it, agreed to sell players at a Board meeting because of the massive wage bill. The problem was, nobody would buy any of the rubbish he had signed so we were reduced to moving on Pardew signings and Academy products.
I don't get how you can still be defending the guy Marty. Yes we are in this mess because of BG and Eggert but Curbishley fired the gun they supplied him and he sprayed the bullets indiscriminately and according to no plan whatsoever. A better manager would have invested that money, not spent it. Do you think Pardew would have bought Davenport, Quashie, Boa-Morte, Bellamy, Ljungberg and Dyer? Not in a million years!
I'm not defending the individual, I'm defending the principle. I didn't enjoy his style of football and I would not advocate his return, despite that I do feel he was poorly treated.
ReplyDeleteThat where we disagree. He was not treated poorly. he was promoted above his level of competence. The club then tried to help him by appointing Nani to assist. Nani did source Ilunga, enabling us to sell McCartney who was no longer fundamental to the team's needs, so avoiding a Collins like sale. Curbishley then threw his toys out of the pram due to his stupid ego and pride, the same ego and pride that led him to dismantle Pardew's team rather than build upon it and which forced Konchesky out.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, I put it to my learned friend that I am defending the principle; not the individual!
ReplyDeleteAnd I put it to my learned friend that any logical judgement would have determined that the principle was being upheld when McCartney was sold. Curbishley had agreed to sales but had been unable to sell anybody that he wanted to sell. Somebody may be opposed to killing but, faced with a pathological killer breaking into a Nursery School with a machine gun, will accept that, in order to stop a bloodbath of innocents, an exception has to be made. Curbishley may not have wanted to sell anybody but the whole club was going to go down the tubes without revenue being generated from sales (as we are witnessing!) The situation that forced the sale of McCartney was of Curbishley's own making. He spent the money and bought players who could not then be sold. He agreed to sales in April but couldn't sell any of the fringe players. Something had to give! The right decision was made when McCartney was sold anyway. The letter of the contract obviously supported Curbishley's case but IN PRINCIPLE, he didn't have a leg to stand on!
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