West Ham Bid For Rocky Santa Cruise

Well has Christmas come early for West Ham fans, with the present of a new star striker, or are Sullivan & Gold about to make the same mistake of previous owners by buying an injury prone, over the top player?

The Davids should have framed pictures of Stewart Robson, Dean Ashton, Freddie Ljungberg and Kieron Dyer on the walls of their offices to remind them of previous cocks up. Buy players with a history of injury problems and don't be surprised when you find yourself paying huge wages for a player to rest up in the treatment room.

Lots of clubs looked the other way when Blackburn bought Santa Cruz precisely because of his injury problems. True, he seemed to have put those problems behind him at Ewood Park but the damp of Manchester got into his joints, and he was out more than he was in at Unreal City.

He didn't look too clever or too interested when City came to Upton Park for the last game of last season and doesn't look to me to be the sort of player who will roll up his sleeves and fight if the going gets tough. More like somebody who will pull up lame and complain about rough house Stoke City tactics.

During the summer I proposed buying Eagles and Fletcher from Burnley and I suspect we missed a real trick when we allowed the Scot to move to Wolves. I would back him to play more games and score more goals than Santa Cruz and, of course, he is much younger.

This deal smacks of desperation to me. So desperate that I'd rather have Bellamy - who at half the price looks a much better stop gap measure. At least Bellamy would fight - often with his own team mates and the management it is true; Roque will probably go missing at Christmas to carry out his other job and remain on cruise control right through to May!